Blame and Commuters

River Stage holds its Playwright’s Festival of New Works over the next few weeks, with staged readings of two original plays.

Bob Duxbury’s Blame (July 18-19) details what happens after the subject of an investigative television report jumps from the Golden Gate Bridge, and the TV reporter ponders his involvement in the tragedy. The reporter senses he is being followed—by whom? Based on actual events, the play questions the meaning of surveillance, self-worth and identity.

Commuters by David Wynne (August 1-2) concerns an everyman grounded by a divisive fear of flying. Day-tripping through life, love and 20th-century Americana, he encounters Schwinn bicycles, suped-up Chevys, air balloons, embattled submarines and gamboling golf carts that take him places he’d never planned to go.

This series has launched several scripts that have gone on to full-scale productions in other cities. River Stage is located at Cosumnes River College, 8401 Center Parkway.