Christopher Chen’s play Into the Numbers, about the author Iris Chang, gets a free staged reading this weekend at the Chicago Temple Building courtesy of the Silk Road Theatre Project. Chang wrote the controversial best-seller The Rape of Nanking in 1997 and was working on another book on Japanese war crimes when she committed suicide in 2004 at the age of 36. (Chang’s friend Paula Kamen wrote a memoir about Chang, which the Reader‘s Kerry Reid covered in the Fall Books Issue last year.) Chen’s play imagines an interview with Chang that descends into chaos as the ghosts of the past return to haunt her. Readings will take place on Saturday at 8 PM and Sunday at 1 PM; reservations are strongly recommended and can be obtained by calling 312-857-1234 ext. 201 or e-mailing boxoffice@srtp.org.