WE ARE THRILLED TO announce OUR 2019 PLAYS:

refuge

by andrew rosendorf

STAGED READING SERIES

REFUGE follows a South Texas Rancher who finds an undocumented teenage migrant from Honduras passed out on his land, a female Latina border patrol agent who is trying to find someone lost in the desert, and the animals who are just trying to survive – as everything is illegal in the desert.

Andrew Rosendorf's work has been produced or developed at La Jolla, MCC, KC Rep, Signature Theatre, the National New Play Network, American Theater Company, Nashville Rep, Local Theater Company, City Theatre, Geva Theatre, Actor’s Express, and Local Theater Company. He is an alum of NNPN’s Playwright-in-Residence program, the Ingram New Works program, terraNOVA Collective’s Groundbreakers Playwrights Group, and has been a SPACE on Ryder Farm, Tofte Lake Center, VCCA, and MacDowell Colony Fellow. He was a previous McKnight and Jerome Fellow at The Playwrights’ Center. His play, Cottontail, was a runner-up for the Yale Drama Series Award. MFA: The New School for Drama, Playwriting.    

MEGAN AND THE BEAR GO CAMPING (TO SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS)

by ZOE JOVANOVICH

STAGED READING SERIES

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Megan has set herself an ultimatum: camp alone for seven days on the rural Alaskan tundra to decide whether or not she wants to kill herself. Unfortunately, her attempts to be alone are consistently foiled by her brother, her own memories, and a grizzly bear named Betty, whom Megan has never met before in her life. A dark comedy about depression, the joys of camping, and bears.

Zoe Jovanovich (she/her/hers) is an emerging playwright and actress hailing from the Pacific Northwest. Her play "Megan and the Bear Go Camping (To Solve Their Problems)" was the co-recipient of the Kennedy Center's National Undergraduate Playwriting Award, which included a week in residence at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. Zoe has been in residence and/or developed work at Echo Theater Company and The Kennedy Center. She has also written and performed for The Core Ensemble's happy-hour sketch show: The Coaster Show. She received her BA in English and Theatre from Western Washington University, with concentrations in acting and writing. Zoe currently resides just outside of Seattle, WA, and attempts to play tennis when it's not raining. She is an Associate Member of the Dramatists Guild.

¡ MAMÁGUA !

by j. Sebastián alberdi

STAGED READING SERIES

When Martín comes out to his mother, la señora Doña Marina goes to extreme lengths to make sure that her son keeps it a secret with the help of La Virgen, Diosito, and a priest. But when Marina realizes she might have acted a bit too impulsively, she has to—again—go to extreme lengths to make everything right. Unfortunately, Martín and his new otherworldly boyfriend are anything but forgiving.

j. sebastián alberdi writes plays (& in the past, poems) about being queer, being mexican, & being brought up in his mother’s catholicism. he is a 2018 lambda literary fellow & works at the huntington theatre in boston, ma as their literary associate. ¡ mamágua ! is his first full-length play & his book of erasure poems from the last chapter of james joyce's ulysses —  Y ES — is available from ghost city press.

earworm

by shualee cook

STAGED READING SERIES

Candles Out is a decade-old punk rock break up song seeking closure with five people whose lives she’s entwined with in very different ways – Sasha and Jory, the two band members that wrote her; Trevor, the guy they wrote her about; Elise, Trevor’s sister; and Kess, Trevor’s new girlfriend ... who also happens to be the Song’s biggest fan. Through the process she discovers that in order to come to terms with her legacy, she might just have to confront something in herself she doesn't want to admit is there.

Shualee Cook has been writing theatre in the Midwest for so long that she’s starting to forget how to speak Californian. She has been a resident playwright at Tesseract Theatre in Saint Louis and Stage Left Theatre in Chicago. Productions, readings and workshops include Earworm (Tesseract Theatre), Cercle Hermaphroditos (Stage Left Theatre Summer Reading, Queer Village Reading Series), An Invitation Out (Mustard Seed Theatre, Benchmark Theatre Fever Dream Festival), Sunset Artists of the American West,” (2016 Chicago New Work Festival, About Face Theatre), “Tempest In A Teapot” (R-S Theatrics, 2016 Idle Muse Athena Festival), and “The Geography of Nowhere’ (Mustard Seed Theatre). She was the Honorable Mention playwright for the 2019 Annual Parity Commission, has been a finalist for the 2016 Jane Chambers Award, the 2016 David Calicchio Award, a two-time finalist for the Goodman Theatre Playwrights Unit, and a semi-finalist for the Princess Grace Award.

the once and future casey colman

by jacqueline bircher

SELECTED SPARK WORKSHOP PLAY

Crystal Plains, Kansas is a town filled with psychics. Maybe. No one’s exactly sure, but there’s definitely something weird going on. When 17-year-old Casey weasels her way into a seminar hosted by her psychic podcasting hero Miss Angela, she’s sure that the mysterious dreams she’s been having all her life are just the beginning. But, between a cat slinking around town predicting untimely deaths and Miss Angela’s shadowy past, present, and future, Casey must confront the possibility that maybe her dream come true isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Jacqueline Bircher is a playwright born and raised in New York City. Plays include Another Revolution, The Once and Future Casey Colman, Webster's Bitch, and The Rule of Thirds. Her short plays Reaction, Thin Ice, and Yesterday Somewhere have been produced in the Detention series at Primary Stages, and her screenwriting work has been featured at the WILDsound Film Festival and recognized by the Creative World Awards and WeScreenplay’s Diverse Voices competition. Jacqueline's plays have been produced and/or developed with Primary Stages, EST/Sloan, Centenary Stage Company, Market Garden Theatre, Duluth Playhouse, Little Theatre of Alexandria, Neo-Political Cowgirls, Clutch Productions, Geneva Theatre Guild, Noisy Nest Theater Company, Naked Angels, the Bechdel Group, and Talk Back Theatre. She studied literature and creative writing at Oxford University and Fordham College at Lincoln Center.