Group stages a new play-reading project

A new artistic endeavor was announced last week: the Untethered Theatre Project, which will stage three play readings at Spalding Nix Fine Art as part of its launch.

Developed by actor-director-casting agent Clifton Guterman, ARTSATL executive director Patti Siegel and actors Jeff Hathcoat and Courtney Moors-hornick, the project’s mission is “to create storytelling opportunities for actors not yet firmly established locally by matching them with dynamic scripts, smart directors and veteran castmates.”

■ J.B. Priestley’s “An Inspector Calls,” the 1945 thriller about an English upper-crust family implicated in a woman’s death, will be the first reading May 16 at 7 p.m., directed by Amelia Fischer. Find more info at spaldingnixfineart.com.

■ Guterman will direct the second reading, “A Great Wilderness” by Samuel D. Hunter, July

18. Set in the present day at a gay conversion camp for teens in Idaho, the play centers on the aging man who runs the camp as he prepares to retire.

■ Cynthia D. Barker, who currently stars in “The Light” at Horizon Theatre, will direct the final reading, “Thirst” by C.A. Johnson,

Sept. 19. Set in a war-torn future, it involves two women struggling to raise their son peacefully in isolated Southern woods. The wives are called to action against a local tyrant when a water supply does not arrive.

The selected plays focus on issues of class, race, privilege, sexuality and societal accountability. They promote human connection. The project founders say the urgency of these stories prompted their action in the