We asked MFA alumni with new work out this spring what they’re reading, and what they'd recommend. Here are Beverley Cooper's picks:

"I’ve just finished reading Marina Endicott’s exquisitely detailed The Little Shadows, which navigates the delicious adventures of the three young Avery Sisters as they make their way up the vaudeville ranks. I just directed an audio book version of it, so I had to read it, but there was a true case of work mingling with pleasure.

I’m in rehearsals with a new production of my play, Innocence Lost: a play about Steven Truscott. The play examines the impact of the terrible events of 1959 when 14-year-old Steven Truscott was sentenced to hang for the murder of 12-year old Lynne Harper.  It’s a complicated case and I’m doing a few rewrites so besides reviewing my mountains of research, I’ve got Julien Sher’s excellent and riveting book on the case, Until You are Dead, at the ready, as well as Why Dissent Mattersby William Kaplan.

My bedtime reading is currently The Witches by Stacy Schiff, a meticulously researched look at the Salem witch trials. It gets a little bogged down on detail at some points but for the most part her take on how the people of Salem went temporarily mad with false and deadly allegations is fascinating. I’m writing a play about a supposed witch, so this is helping get into the world. Next up from the stack: Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese. I want to read it before the movie seeps into my brain."

Performances for Beverley Cooper’s play, Innocence Lost: a play about Steven Truscott [1] begin May 14th at Soulpepper Theater in Toronto. A limited number of Arts Worker tickets [2] available for select performances.