Plays of the Agesgather · read · vanish
Season One · twelve plays · one Sunday a month

Cast yourself in
Season One.

Twelve plays, four thousand years apart, read aloud by whoever shows up. Take a part and speak it.

Free, always.

Season One
The Room · a walkthrough, not a recording

Inside a reading

Plays of the Ages readings and reading sessions of your own happen in a room like this. Feel free to click around.

1 · Gathering
2 · Introductions
3 · The reading
4 · Intermission
5 · Talkback

This is the room itself, with a stand-in cast. The mic follows the script: when the marker reaches your line it unmutes you, and when it passes it hands the mic on — you can always press to speak, it just means nobody talks over the play by accident. The buttons in the room work: press Video-led to put the faces first, or Settings to move the script to paper and change how your own lines are marked. Introductions are optional — a room that wants to go straight in presses Begin the reading instead.

Where the scripts come from

Twenty-four centuries, no gatekeeper

The library opens with some of what we could source and prepare — Greek, Sanskrit, Noh, Restoration, Ibsen, Chekhov, the Harlem Renaissance. We have no contemporary works yet because they are all in copyright. We can apply for rights to read them here together — make recommendations and cast votes over on Suggest a title.

Beyond Season One

Host your own reading.

Pick the play, set the date, open the casting. The same room Season One runs in, pointed at a group of your own. Your first reading as a host is free; after that, Circle Host covers every reading you host and every part you take.

$24
a year — Circle Host

The first reading you host is free.
Nothing is charged per night.

The Letter

What's reading next

A letter before each reading — the play, the parts still open, and what the circle is asking permission to read next. No account needed.

Free forever. Leave whenever. We never sell it.
The Library

Plays from Every Age

The public domain itself is enormously bigger than this. Thousands of plays are free to read and nobody has typed them up for a room yet. If one you want is missing, tell us and we will go and get it — , or see what the public domain actually holds.

◇ All Titles
★ Season One Readings
◈ Member Hosted Readings
The next reading

…

The cast list

Click any open seat to claim it

Attend this Reading

The Library · Suggestion Box

Suggest a play

Everything we hold, by time and geography. The numbered pins are Season One; the faint dots are the rest of the library. What isn't here — the blank rows, and that whole hatched edge on the right.

The columns are ages, not equal stretches of years. Drawn to scale, everything before 1900 would be a hairline and the last century would eat the page.

depth of what is readable still in copyright nothing translated 1 Season One

We don't know everything — please tell us what we're missing

This is what we could find. It is absolutely not everything that exists. There are texts sitting in library basements, things in languages none of us read, translations somebody's grandmother has a copy of on a shelf. If you know of a play, a translation, a scan, or even just a lead that belongs somewhere on this map — especially in one of the empty rows — please send it. We'd much rather be corrected than look finished.

Suggestion Form

A play in the public domain that isn't on the shelf yet. And if you have a copyrighted contemporary play that you want to contribute to a reading for the season program, thank you — please do so here. For original unpublished works, go to to create and schedule readings.

The work

The text you'd read from

Not required — but with one from those three we can usually answer today instead of next week.

That last one is the most useful answer on this form. Most of what's missing from the shelf is missing because nobody translated it, not because somebody owns it — and that gap is invisible unless people report it.

Anything else you know

Free text on purpose. We're not asking you to rule on it — a tick box would ask you to settle the exact question we're about to go and answer.

Only if you have actually been quoted one. A real figure is worth a great deal: if this play turns out to be in copyright, a real figure tells us straight away whether a reading of it is even possible. Guesses are worse than a blank.

So we can tell you what happened

One email, about this suggestion, and nothing else ever.

We read every one. Nothing is posted publicly with your name on it.

The Library · Current suggestions

Voting Pool for Works in Copyright

We can write to the estate or the licensor and pay for the right. Asking costs you nothing and takes one press. $1 from memberships goes toward a play's copyright application with each vote.

My Alcove

Your readings, castings and character settings

You don't have an alcove yet. Take a part in a reading and this becomes yours.

The casting map

What would you rather play?

Eight questions, no wrong answers, and nothing about what you are like — only what you would rather spend two hours being. It ends in open parts you can take.

Your next reading
Not yet
A room appears here once you've taken a part.

Your membership

Sign in to see your membership.

Your parts

Nothing yet. Your first part is free, in any reading. Your first night as a host is free too, and separate from it.

Recording permissions

Nothing archived yet — the first reading is still ahead of us.

Public domain readings only, and only when the room agrees. Licensed readings are never recorded — the licence forbids it, and so do we.

Gather your people · anywhere in the country

Host a Play Reading

Bring the play; we build the room, split the parts, and read the ones nobody takes. You can invite whoever you like, or leave the door open and let the circle fill it.

Open to anyone in the United States — a book club, a college or university theatre department, a playhouse between seasons, eight friends in four time zones. You can read anything here on one of three grounds: the play is in the public domain, it is an original work of your own, or you hold a licence for it.

Five short sections. Nothing is booked until the last one — you can walk back through them as often as you like.

The play

Tell us about the play. If it is one of ours, choose it above instead — this part is for a work we don't hold yet.

It's in the public domain The text you'd read from is out of copyright — which for a translation means the translation's own date, not the playwright's.
It's an original work of mine You keep every right to your play. Reading it here grants no claim to anyone who reads in it, and you can withdraw it at any time.
I hold a licence for it A contemporary play you have written permission to read. We never record a licensed reading.
A play we don't hold has one step before a room can open: somebody has to prepare the script, with the parts split out and the stage directions kept where the printer put them. That is an afternoon of a person's time, not a button — so this sends the request and we write back. Nothing is charged for it.

The hour

Under the minimum, the reading still happens — it just shows how many more voices it's hoping for, and goes out in the letter.

The door

Open to any member Appears in the library and on the calendar. Anyone signed in can claim a part.
Invitation only Hidden from the library. Only people holding your link can claim a part or listen.

Choose invitation only and we hand you a private link the moment the reading is made — it is on the confirmation, ready to copy.

Around the reading

Time to arrive, a breather, and somewhere to talk afterwards.

Gathering — 15 minutes before The room opens early with music. People arrive, say hello, mark themselves present.
Intermission A 10-minute break between acts. Music returns, recording pauses.
Talkback afterwards Half an hour to talk about what just happened. Never recorded — people say truer things when nothing is being kept.
Record the play Only the play itself — never the gathering, the interval or the talkback. Everyone who reads is asked separately whether they want to be in it, and can say no or change their mind afterwards. Public domain and your own work only.

The waiting music

Plays while people gather and during intermission — never inside the recording, and never over a line.

You'll host it — you can mute or remove anyone, and nobody can share a screen, including you.

Membership

Your first part and your first reading are free.

Anyone can wander the library, read every play in it, and sit in on any reading as audience. Your first part is free, in any reading, and so is the first reading you host — the two are counted separately, so one never spends the other. After that, there is a membership for taking parts, and one for hosting too.

By the fire
Free
  • Your first part, in any reading
  • Host your first reading
  • Browse the full library and read every play in it
  • Sit in on any live reading as audience — a free account, no payment
  • Watch past readings in the archive
  • Vote on next season’s plays, and suggest new ones
  • A reminder before a reading — just an email address
In the Circle
$8 / year
  • Everything by the fire
  • Take any part in any reading — Season One or member-hosted
  • Save clips from archived readings, to keep and to post
  • Vote in the licence pool — $1 from memberships goes toward a play’s licence with each vote
Circle Host
$24 / year
  • Everything in the Circle
  • Host your own readings, with no charge per night — up to three on the calendar at once
  • Open to anyone, or by invitation only

Change plan or cancel any time from your alcove. Cancelling stops the renewal; your membership runs to the end of the year you paid for.