Playwrights' Theatre
of East Hampton
Founded by Mitzi and Perry Pazer
A series for theater lovers and artists that focuses on the written and spoken word and where the audience can mingle with playwrights, actors, and directors in a casual setting.
The Playwrights' Theatre was founded in East Hampton in 1992 by producer and Springs resident Mitzi Pazer from The Roundabout Theatre Company along with her husband, attorney Perry Pazer. They started the series at LTV where it operated every summer for 10 years before shifting to the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall for another ten seasons. Incredible stars took part: Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, Judd Hirsch, Estelle Parsons, Dianne Wiest, Peter Boyle, Jack Klugman, Mercedes Ruehl, Tovah Feldshuh and Charles Durning among countless others. Playwrights' Theatre gave a chance for East Hampton audiences to meet and mingle with these luminaries in a relaxed setting where process and dialogue were encouraged with great talkbacks and informal garden receptions. The emphasis was on the written and spoken word, with playwrights being selected by Mitzi and afforded a remarkable, focused and hospitable workshop in which to hear and shape their developing plays. When Josh Gladstone to joined the team at LTV in early 2023, Gladstone reached out to the Pazers with an invitation, and sure enough the Pazers responded, excited to see their legacy of 30 years reignited and reimagined for a new generation of East Hampton theater lovers and artists. LTV is proud to welcome The Playwrights' Theatre back home to Studio 3 in Wainscott, where the work of the Pazers will continue, offering creative opportunities to theater-makers to develop their voices and imaginations throughout the year.
UPCOMIPNG PLAYS:
A STEADY RAIN
October 1st-4th & October 8th-9th 2025 @ 7:30PM
A dark duologue filled with sharp storytelling and biting repartee, A Steady Rain explores the complexities of a lifelong bond tainted by domestic affairs, violence, and the rough streets of Chicago.
Joey and Denny have been best friends since kindergarten, and after working together for several years as policemen in Chicago, they are practically family: Joey helps out with Denny's wife and kids; Denny keeps Joey away from the bottle. But when a domestic disturbance call takes a turn for the worse, their friendship is put on the line. The result is a harrowing journey into a moral gray area where trust and loyalty struggle for survival against a sobering backdrop of pimps, prostitutes, and criminal lowlifes.
A Steady Rain opened on Broadway in 2009 starring starring Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig.
BE MY BABY
Friday October 17th @ 7:30
"Be My Baby” is a timely and surreal exploration of a son's lifelong struggle to care for his mother with Traumatic Brain Injury, all while grappling with America's criminally negligent healthcare industry. The show unfolds as a journey of love and self-discovery, structured around a vivid dream where angelic dancers clad in rhinestones guide Vincent and his mother through a night on the town that could lead them to the existential answers they so desperately seek.
RHINOCEROS
SAT 10/18 @ 7:30PM
The sublime is confused with the ridiculous in this savage commentary on the human condition, a staple of every theatre classroom and 20th century drama. A small town is besieged by one roaring citizen who becomes a rhinoceros and proceeds to trample on the social order. As more citizens are transformed into rhinoceroses, the trampling becomes overwhelming, and more and more citizens become rhinoceroses. One sane man, Berenger, remains, unable to change his form and identity.
