Calley at a table read for one of her plays, January 2025, NYC

Open Table Read:

The Story and the Teller

by Calley N. Anderson

Saturday, December 27, 2025

11 AM - 5 PM CT

Memphis, TN (location TBD)

Join playwright Calley N. Anderson for an open table read of her work in development, The Story and the Teller! During this Open Table Read, actors will read through the full text of the play and engage with the playwright in the Liz Lerman Critical Response Process. As the table read occurs, theatremakers, students, and the generally curious will be invited to observe the reading and take part in a mid-day talkback to frame what it means to be “in development” with a script, what it means to be a working playwright and NYC artist, the skills required to sustain, and what Memphians interested in writing could take away from the experience.

*This is an invitation-only reading.

Play Synopsis: Set in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and social uprising, The Story and the Teller follows the resident acting company of a fictional Memphis theatre tasked with devising a play about the 1878 Yellow Fever epidemic and its effect on Memphis’s Black, white, and immigrant citizens. Challenging enough on its own, the process is marred by questions and disagreements about history, race, gender, safety and storytelling, issues that played out in both 1878 and 2020 in dizzying ways.

Cast: 4M, 7W

Casting Call

Actors interested in participating should fill out this form. Resume and headshot required.

Learn more about the roles we’re still looking for below:

  • member of the acting company, opinionated but highly adaptable golden retriever, recent-ish transplant from just outside of Nashville

  • member of the acting company, calculating and outspoken but never easy to pin down, a bartender and native Memphian

  • member of the acting company, consistently patronizing, liable to be a theatre gatekeeper in the future, from the West Coast

  • member of the acting company, a PK (preacher’s kid), kind in a judgmental sort of way, a native Memphian—Germantown-raised, specifically

  • member of the acting company, a classic narcissist who happens to be a very dynamic performer, the most consistent lead in shows, a former (but not native) New Yorker

  • Artistic Director of the theatre, imagines herself as a true ally, always finds a way to be paternalistic, from the Northeast