Joyce Carol Oates’ new play Bad Touch tells the story of an eccentric young teacher leaving Brooklyn for the heartland to fulfill a naive fantasy of ‘discovering America.’ Her new life proves confusing, disorienting, and ultimately disastrous as she experiences a school shooting and a student’s unjust accusation of sexual harrassment. Bad Touch includes Oates’ trademark penetrating intelligence, mordant humor, and simultaneous celebration and questioning of American culture.

In this intimate one-of-a-kind event, actor and director Bill Connington leads the first professional reading of this play. The cast includes Broadway star Leslie Kritzer. An audience conversation with Ms. Oates and the cast follows the reading.

Joyce Carol Oates is widely known as one of America’s most prolific and admired literary novelists and short-story writers. She has also penned numerous dramatic works including The Perfectionist.

Bill Connington adapted Oates’ novella Zombie into a solo play that he performed in New York. His short film version of the work has been screened at nineteen film festivals nationwide.

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