Pioneer Square's Occidental Park plays host to play readings

Some of the city's best talents help launch new theater group READ + HEAR, which offers unadorned readings of plays in Pioneer Square's Occidental Park.

On Tuesday, Seattle Children's Theatre regular Tim Gouran joins Betty Campbell (recently seen in Edge Ensemble Theatre's "Mother Courage"), Michael Way, Eric Helland and Susan Conners to read A.R. Gurney's "Ancestral Voices: A Family Story." The play involves a wealthy family in Buffalo, N.Y., in the years leading up to World War II, shaken when the grandmother suddenly leaves her husband to marry his best friend.

Thursday sees Carrie Hamilton and Carol Burnett doing a reading of "Hollywood Arms," a thinly veiled autobiographical story of Burnett's growing up with her mother and grandmother in a one-bedroom apartment a block away from Hollywood Boulevard. The cast has not yet been announced.

Both readings begin at 6:30 p.m. and are free. Seating is provided, but all are encouraged to bring chairs, blankets, pillows and a picnic dinner. No alcoholic beverages are permitted. The events are sponsored by Seattle Parks and Recreation and managed by the Downtown Seattle Association.

-- Gianni Truzzi