12:01 p.m., Oct. 19, 2010----The University of Delaware's Resident Ensemble Players will give a free reading of playwright Theresa Rebeck's play Bad Dates at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 20, in the Harthorn Theatre at the corner of East Park Place and Academy Street.

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The reading is free and open to the public.

In the play, Haley Walker, the divorced mother of a 13-year-old daughter, has moved to New York from Austin, Texas, taken a job as a waitress and become the manager of the business when the Rumanian Mafioso owner is packed off to prison. Deciding to dive back into the dating pool, she prepares for an evening out and regales the audience with hysterical tales of dates from the dark side.

REP company member Elizabeth Heflin reads the role of Haley, and fellow company member Stephen Pelinski fills in all the action.

A prolific playwright, Rebeck is widely produced in New York, throughout the United States and abroad. Past New York productions of her work include Mauritius on Broadway; The Scene, The Water's Edge, Loose Knit, The Family of Mann and Spike Heels at Second Stage; Bad Dates, The Butterfly Collection and Our House at Playwrights Horizons; and View of the Dome at New York Theatre Workshop. Omnium Gatherum (co-written, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2003) was featured at the Humana Festival, and had a commercial run at the Variety Arts Theatre.

Her newest work, The Understudy, premiered at the 2008 Williamstown Theatre Festival and ran in New York at the Laura Pels Theater in a Roundabout Theatre Company production as part of its 2009-10 season. Rebeck was recently named an associate artist of the Roundabout, one of the leading cultural institutions in New York City.

As the 2010-11 resident playwright for the REP, Rebeck is creating a dynamic political comedy pulled from news headlines. Focusing on hot topics like bullying, reproductive rights and Tea Party politics, Rebeck is pulling together a wealth of characters from all walks of life and historical backgrounds to provide a boisterous night of entertainment. O Beautiful premieres April 22 in the Thompson Theatre of the Roselle Center for the Arts.

For more information, call (302) 831-2204 or email [ud-rep@udel.edu].