People power plays. Plays power progress.
Join us for free [virtual] readings of exciting NEW works-in-progress that are in keeping with our mission to bring you risky, adventurous plays that you won’t find anywhere else in Southern California.
SAT, NOV 7
- 10:00AM: Vol. 1 – A Post Racial America by Vincent Terrell Durham
- 4:00PM: Fault Lines (Iceland/Greenland) by Nicolas Billon
SAT, NOV 14
- 10:00AM: Kingdom of Wonder by Shayan Lotfi
- 4:00PM: Superstitions by Emily Zemba
- 7:00PM: Zoom Cocktail Mixer with the Playwrights (RSVP for the mixer HERE)
Each reading will be performed LIVE and will not be available after the performance.
ABOUT THE PLAYS
KINGDOM OF WONDER
by Shayan Lotfi
directed by Jennifer Chang
Strangers from around the world encounter each other over the course of a weekend at a guesthouse in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The lives of guests and hosts intersect, as they struggle with loss and loneliness, leading each of them to a deeper understanding of who they are in this place, at this moment.
KUNTHEA – Pisay Pao
PHALLY – Charya Burt
KELVIN – James Kyson
CLAIRE – Lucy Taylor
RAVIJ – Imran Sheikh
STAGE DIRECTIONS – Courtney Doyle
STAGE MANAGER – Trixie E. Hong
SUPERSTITIONS
by Emily Zemba
directed by Jenna Worsham
Grieg, a visitor from a foreign country, finds a penny on the ground. When he tries to offer it to a stranger sitting near him—it sparks an absurd and frightening conversation about “bad luck.” Superstitions is an unconventional dark comedy about navigating our personal and national terrors and what happens when we believe in the unknown.
GRIEG – Dylan Saunders
NEREIDA – Carolyn Ratteray
JANE – Emily Goss
MICHAEL – Karthik Srinivasan
HENRY / THE MAN-IN-THE-WALL – Justin Huen
OLDER – Emily Kuroda
YOUNGER – Gizel Jiménez
SILDAT – Jer Adrianne Lelliott
STAGE DIRECTIONS – Richard Via
STAGE MANAGER – Trixie E. Hong
VOL. 1 – A POST RACIAL AMERICA
by Vincent Terrell Durham
directed by Rondrell McCormick
Vol. 1 – A Post Racial America is a theatrical manifestation of a broken promise. Hattie McDaniel wins an Academy Award in the midst of a stream of vignettes set over a partial arc of American history: young women dare to use a “Whites Only” bathroom; a couple bring their newborn home in the back of an Uber; two parents separated by time mourn the loss of a son, one in the past, one imagined in the future. A reminder that the emergency brake on the Post Racial America train has been pulled, lurching a train full of hopeful Black Americans back to a time when 46.09% of voters thought America was great, asking the audience to bear witness as we disembark the stalled train and drag her back from 1619 to 2020.
SAMARIA – Rachael Ferrera
DARRYL – Nic Few
SIMON – Jon Gentry
RICHARD – Gerard Joseph
DIANE – Stephanie T. Keefer
JUANITA – Marshel Adams
MATTHEW – Tahmus Rounds
CARA – Angela K. Thomas
STAGE MANAGER – Trixie E. Hong
DRAMATURG – Rufus Bonds, Jr.
FAULT LINES (ICELAND/GREENLAND)
by Nicolas Billon
directed by Hannah Wolf
This incisive play, in two discrete acts, explores the intersection of capitalism and climate change on a human scale. Iceland is set again the backdrop of the 2008 banking criss, as an Estonian Master’s student-turned-escort, a capital-C Capitalist real estate agent, and a recently evicted devout Christian collide in an unexpected and tragic encounter. In Greenland, receding ice levels off the coast have revealed that an area thought to be part of the mainland is actually a separate island. This discovery mirrors a growing rift between the island’s discoverer and his increasingly distant family, set adrift after a catastrophic loss. The intertwined stories of each act echo one another, reflecting the unavoidable connections between ambition, need, belief, and survival.
HALIM / JONATHAN – Dileep Rao*
ANNA / JUDITH – Meghan Andrews*
KASSANDRA / TANYA – Caitlin Zambito
STAGE MANAGER – Trixie E. Hong
