At Claire Vaye Watkins’ reading on Wednesday, Sept. 30th at Literati Bookstore, the author summarized her book, Gold Fame Citrus, as being, “about the California drought, more or less." It also ties into what she classified as “two of her fascinations: nuclear waste repositories and mole people.” To be fair though, it’s more about environmental destruction, hope, and survival than it is about mole people.

In the book, a damaged couple who are eking out an existence in a wasted dystopian landscape take in a lost child, forming a little family. This is the catalyst for their decision to venture East into the shifting expanses of sand, where they will encounter more unknowns than they could possibly have anticipated.

This surreal and incredibly original book also comes with a drinking game! The official rules, as laid out by the author at the reading, are as follows:

Read the book.

Drink when you are thirsty.

This is the most sensible drinking game I have ever encountered.

For the Literati reading, Watkins selected “a deep cut” from within the novel, and shared that although the chapter is unnamed in the book, she originally titled it “Wasteland Wasteland Wasteland.”

Two things about her reading selection:
1) It held the entire standing room-only crowd completely captivated; I cannot remember a single cough or shuffle of feet.
2) It had a mole person.

Watkins is an assistant professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan. Gold Fame Citrus has received many positive reviews, including ones from the New York Times and the Washington Post. If you missed the chance to see Watkins in person at Literati, you can check out her NPR interview and appreciate the story of her inspiration in her own words, and you really should. You can borrow Gold Fame Citrus, or Watkins’ 2012 story collection, Battleborn, at AADL.

Sara Wedell is a Production Librarian and fiction selector at the Ann Arbor District Library.

It is hard to believe, but true. Purple Rose Theatre Company in Chelsea is 25 years old.

The Theatre began in 1991 and its inaugural season included a play called Shoe Man by a new playwright: Purple Rose’s famous founder Jeff Daniels. The play won The Detroit News’ Best New Play Award; Purple Rose went on to become a leader in American regional theater and Jeff Daniels continued to write many more plays that premiered at the Chelsea theatre.

Local audiences should be excited! To celebrate its silver anniversary, Purple Rose kicks off its season with a brand new Jeff Daniels world-premiere comedy. Casting Session takes place in the world of professional theatre, as middle-aged rival actors Frank (Tom Whalen) and Ron (David Daoust) hilariously compete for the same New York City roles.

The play, directed by Guy Sanville, explores the humorous lengths actors will go to to get a part. Erika Matchie Thiede, a past Purple Rose apprentice who is making her professional debut in this production, rounds out the talented cast.

Tim Grimes is manager of Community Relations & Marketing at the Ann Arbor District Library and co-founder of Redbud Productions.

Casting Session performances run Wednesday - ­Sunday, through December 19. For information, visit www.purplerosetheatre.org or call 734-433-7673. Purple Rose Theatre Company is located at 137 Park Street in Chelsea.

George and Martha, the battle-weary duo made famous by Richard Burton and Liz Taylor in Mike Nichol’s classic Oscar-winning film, pay a month-long visit to Ann Arbor as Performance Network Theatre opens its season with Edward Albee’s Tony-winning play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? This fascinatingly intelligent play, which also won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, will be directed by Suzi Regan.

Reviewing the 1962 premiere, the New York Times stated "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is possessed by raging demons. It is punctuated by comedy, and its laughter is shot through with savage irony.” Performance Network Executive Director John Manfredi states, “It’s a perfect start to our season. The dialogue, the games, the wit­ it’s writing at its best.”

Network veterans John Seibert and Sandra Birch play the disenchanted college professor and his unhappy wife who plan an intimate evening of cocktails, fun, and games with a naïve new couple on campus (Nick Yocum and Victoria Walters Gilbert). What begins with witty wordplay ends with a climax that still shocks modern audiences.

Tim Grimes is manager of Community Relations & Marketing at the Ann Arbor District Library and co-founder of Redbud Productions.

Performances of ​Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ​run Thursday - ­Sunday, October 1­ - November 1, with previews October 1­-8 and Opening Night on Friday, October 9. For information, visit www.pntheatre.org ​ or call 734-­663-­0681. Performance Network Theatre is located at 120 E Huron St in Ann Arbor.

This upcoming weekend, the University Musical Society (UMS) presents Antigone, starring Academy Award-winning actress Juliette Binoche in a contemporary version of Sophokles’ timeless tragedy of familial love caught in conflict with political obligation.

Directed by Ivo van Hove and translated by Canadian poet Anne Carson--a former U-M professor of classics and comparative literature (as well as MacArthur “Genius” grant winner)--this modern adaptation tells the story of a young woman, Antigone, who defies her uncle Creon, head of state in Thebes, when he refuses her brother burial on the grounds that he is a traitor.

In his review in the New York Times, theater reviewer Ben Brantley notes, “Ms. Binoche glows with the fever of fanatical, fixed purpose. She brings to mind the great Maria Falconetti in Carl Dreyer’s silent Passion of Joan of Arc, a film Ms. Binoche has cited as a major influence on her acting.” Check out a copy of Antigone.

Amy Cantú is a Production Librarian at the Ann Arbor District Library.

Antigone runs Wednesday, October 14 - Saturday October 17, 2015 at The Power Center, 121 Fletcher St., Ann Arbor. Learn more and purchase tickets online.

In honor of Arthur Miller’s centenary and the University of Michigan Department of Theatre & Drama’s 100th Anniversary, director Wendy C. Goldberg and other alumni of the Department of Theatre & Drama will present All My Sons, Miller’s first major success after graduating from U-M, a Tony Award-winner for Best Author, and winner of the 1947 Drama Critics Award for Best Play.

The New York Times called it “the most talented work by a new author in some time….To judge by the intellectual content and the dramatic workmanship of “All My Sons," Mr. Miller is here to stay….”

Like Death of a Salesman written two years later, the story follows a flawed everyman wrestling with the American Dream: Joe Keller is a successful businessman who may have knowingly sold faulty cylinder heads for aircraft engines in World War II that caused the deaths of 21 pilots. The play takes place over the course of a weekend three and a half years later when his youngest son, Chris, hopes to marry his deceased older brother's fiancee, Ann, the daughter of Keller's best friend Steve (his partner who was jailed for the crime).

The University of Michigan Department of Theatre & Drama will also present the Arthur Miller Symposium, a series of free talks and panel discussions occurring October 14-16. They include: “Miller into the Future” (7pm, October 14, Stamps Auditorium); “Miller as Touchstone” (4:30pm, October 15, Arthur Miller Theater); and “Miller in Production” (6:30pm, October 16, Stamps Auditorium).

Amy Cantú is a Production Librarian at the Ann Arbor District Library.

Performances of All My Sons run October 10-11, and 15-18, in the Arthur Miller Theatre on U-M’s North Campus. For tickets call (734) 764-2538 or purchase online.