NPRF26: The Frankenstein Project

MAY 17, 2PM

by E.M. Lewis

In 1816, Mary Shelley grieves her lost child and conjures a creature and his godlike creator in her masterpiece, Frankenstein. In the present, Mary Lattimore mourns her mother and begins an unlikely friendship with a sentient AI robot her father has created and brought home. The Frankenstein Project is about the monsters we battle, the monsters we create, and the monsters we (sometimes) are.


ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

E. M. Lewis is an award-winning playwright, teacher, lyricist, and opera librettist. Her work has been produced around the world, and published by Samuel French. She received the Steinberg Award for How the Light Gets In and Song of Extinction and the Primus Prize for Heads from the American Theater Critics Association, the Ted Schmitt Award from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, a playwriting fellowship from the New Jersey State Arts Commission, the 2016 Oregon Literary Fellowship in Drama, and an Edgerton Award for Magellanica.  Other plays include: Apple Season (National New Play Network rolling world premiere), The Gun Show (more than fifty productions across the country; Edinburgh Fringe), True Story, Dorothy’s Dictionary, and You Can See All the Stars (a play for college students commissioned by the Kennedy Center).  Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Fallen Giant (written with composer Evan Meier) premiered at Opera Modesto last year.  Lewis recently finished Apple Hunters! (which will have its world premiere at Artists Repertory Theater in April 2026) and Strange Birds (finalist for the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival).  Lewis is currently playwright-in-residence at Artists Repertory Theater through the Mellon Foundation’s National Playwright Residency Program, and is a proud member of LineStorm Playwrights, Opera America, and the Dramatists Guild. She lives on her family’s farm in Oregon.

NEW PLAY READING FESTIVAL 2026

People power plays. Plays power progress.

Join us for staged readings of exciting new works that are in keeping with our mission to bring you risky, adventurous plays that you won’t find anywhere else in Southern California, as well as surrounding events that celebrate the artists making the work.


Buy all three play readings and save 10%!
BUY NPRF 3-PACK

Workshop support for professional and new work development provided through Ellen Lewis’ Playwright Residency with the National Playwrights Residency Project, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

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