What we always hear: “Black Male Shot by White Police Officer.” What we never see — how loved ones struggle to cope in the aftermath. The Matrix Theatre Company presents the West Coast premiere of a daring new play from a significant emerging voice in theater. Scraps, written by Geraldine Inoa and directed by 2019 Obie Award winner Stevie Walker-Webb, opens at the Matrix Theatre on July 6, with previews beginning June 27.

Set in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, three months after the fatal shooting of black teenager Forest Winthrop by a white police officer, Scraps is a provocative mash up of poetry, realism and expressionism that chronicles the effects of Forest’s death on his family and friends.

“Geraldine has created a completely original, highly theatrical, frequently funny collage,” says producer Joseph Stern. “At first glance, the story sounds very familiar — but I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“Trauma doesn’t end after the event, but instead reverberates forever through the lives of those who remain,” Inoa explains. “If we continue to only engage in surface-level conversations about race that prevent us from feeling uncomfortable, we are only asking for things to stay the same. This is a provocative play that may cause discomfort, but I hope it enables audiences to make a step forward, even if that means just making room to listen to my characters for 90-minutes.”

Those characters include aspiring rapper Jean Baptiste Delacroix; Forest’s high school friend Calvin Young, whose status as a freshman at Columbia University may not be enough to save; Aisha Douglas, the beautiful mother of Forest’s son; Aisha’s tragic younger sister; and Forest’s young son, Sebastian.

Scraps premiered in a sold-out run at NYC’s Flea Theater in 2018, directed by artistic director Niegel Smith. The New York Times review called Inoa “a playwright to watch,” noting her “own sharp vision”; Time Out New York called Inoa “a passionate new voice screaming to be heard”; and The New Yorker described Scraps as “an ambitious, vibrant new play.” It was a finalist for the L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award, a semifinalist for the P73 Playwriting Fellowship and a semifinalist for the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference.

An alumnus of the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group and the inaugural recipient of the Shonda Rhimes Unsung Voices Playwriting Commission from IAMA Theatre Company, Inoa currently resides in Los Angeles where she writes for AMC’s The Walking Dead. Her work has been developed at both the Atlantic Theater Company and Labyrinth Theater Company. The Flea Theater production of Scraps marked her professional playwriting debut. She holds a B.A. from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

Stevie Walker-Webb is an Obie award-winning director, performing artist and cultural worker, a former 2050 Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop (named in celebration of the Census Bureau’s projection that by the year 2050, there will be no single racial or ethnic majority in the U.S.) and recipient of the Princess Grace Award for theater. Off-Broadway: Jordan E. Cooper’s Ain’t No Mo’ at the Public Theater; upcoming: Fairview at Woolly Mammoth and One In Two with the New Group in New York City. He is the founding artistic director of the Jubilee Theatre in Waco, Texas, holds an MFA from the New School, a BS in Sociology from the University of North Texas, and is an Emerge-NYC alumnus.

In 2009, following more than three decades of producing multiple award-winning work for the stage, Matrix Theatre Company founder/artistic director Stern resolved to redirect the company’s focus to the exploration of race issues in contemporary society. Since then, the Matrix has offered up critically acclaimed productions of Lydia Diamond’s Stick Fly, set in the Martha’s Vineyard summer home of an upper middle class African American family; Neighbors, the highly provocative study of the history of racism in America by then-unknown playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, who has since gone on to win two Obie awards and a MacArthur “genius” grant; a non-traditional. multi-culturally cast production of all My Sons by Arthur Miller; the West Coast premiere of We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South-West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915 by Jackie Sibblies Drury, who went on to receive the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama; and the Los Angeles premiere of The Mountaintop by Katori Hall, in an acclaimed production directed by Roger Guenveur Smith.

Scraps opens on July 6 and continues through Sept. 15, with previews taking place June 27 through July. 5. Performances are scheduled Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 3 p.m. and Mondays at 8 p.m. General admission on Saturdays and Sundays is $35; previews and all Monday evening performances are Pay-What-You-Want. The Matrix Theatre is located at 7657 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90046 (west of Stanley Ave., between Fairfax and La Brea). For reservations and information, call (323) 960-7711 or go to www.matrixtheatre.com

Odyssey Theatre Ensemble continues its “Circa ’69!” season of significant and adventurous plays that premiered around the time of the Odyssey’s 1969 inception with the signature work of early feminist giant of the avant-garde María Irene Fornés, Fefu and Her Friends. Denise Blasor directs.

In this splendidly surreal comedy-drama, a group of eight women gathers at the country home of the brilliant and eccentric Fefu to plan an event for their do-gooding educational work. As multiple conflicts unfold between the old friends, they struggle to define who they are and what it means to be a woman in a male-dominated world.

In a format that was groundbreaking for its time, the play is divided into three parts. The first part takes place in the living room of the house with the full audience. The second part is set in four different areas of the house: the lawn, the study, the bedroom and the kitchen. Fornés deconstructed the familiar stage, removing the fourth wall, and scenes are played in multiple locations simultaneously. The audience is divided into groups to watch each scene, then they rotate to the next set as the scene is repeated, until each group has seen all four scenes. The play concludes in the living room with the full audience.

Starring Tiffany Cole, Dominique Corona, Sandy Duarte, Tanya Gorlow, Jennifer Lee Laks, Sydney A. Mason, Zaire Martínez Roldán, Alexis B. Santiago, Cynthia Yelle.

“This is a play about female empowerment and about all aspects of femininity,” says Blasor. “With only a small number of audience members present for each scene, they become part of the characters’ most intimate reflections about their relationships to men, to each other, to Eve and ‘original sin.’ It’s about the volumes of sadness that we, as women, carry, and how, sometimes, we are the enemies to ourselves instead of being sisters. It’s a play about awakening and not surrendering. It’s set in 1935, a wonderfully historic era full of jazz, art, poetry and politics.”

Performances of Fefu and Her Friends take place on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.and Sundays at 2 p.m. Additional weeknight performances are scheduled on Wednesday, Sept. 11; Thursday, Sept. 19, and Wednesday, Sept. 25; all at 8 p.m. There will be three preview performances, on Wednesday, July 31; Thursday, Aug. 1, and Friday, Aug.2, also at 8 p.m.

Join LAFPI on Saturday, August 24 for our first LAFPI Night at the Odyssey! Meet up at 7pm for a free class of wine before the show. Click Here for Info.  Use code LAFPI for $25 tix (which include a free drink coupon).

Visit us on facebook: www.facebook.com/OdysseyTheatre
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The Fountain Theatre, in association with East West Players and with generous support form the S. Mark Taper Foundation, presents the California premiere of Hannah and the Dread Gazebo by Jiehae Park. Los Angeles Drama Critic’s Circle Award-winner Jennifer Chang (Vietgone) directs.

Creation myths and family histories meld in this wildly theatrical, startling new comedy that explores what it means to walk the edge between cultures.

Set in NYC and Korea in the winter of 2011, just before the death of Kim Jong Il, Hannah and the Dread Gazebo takes Hannah’s Korean American family on a surreal, funny and heartbreaking adventure back to their roots in South and North Korea and the forbidden Demilitarized Zone that divides them.

“The play is a funny-tragic look at what it means to be caught in between,” says Park. “The characters are striving to reconcile the contradictions of their immigrant lives: North/South, past/future, coming/going.”

Thirty-something Hannah, played by Monica Hong (Ivanov at the Mint Theater in NYC, Please Stand By at Actor’s Playpen in LA), is two weeks away from becoming a board-certified neurologist when she receives a FedEx box from her grandmother with two things inside: a 100% bona-fide-heart’s-desire-level wish — and a suicide note. Hannah’s father (Hahn Cho, recently seen on TV in For the People, Magnum P.I., Swedish Dicks) and mother (Elaine Kao — upcoming feature film Paper Tigers, recurring on Netflix’s No Good Nick) have already moved back to South Korea to be near Grandma at the Sunrise Dewdrop Apartment City for Senior Living, which sits right on the edge of the DMZ. Meanwhile, Hannah’s slacker brother, Dang (Gavin Lee, whose credits include Blood, written and directed by Robert Allan Ackerman, and a recurring role on Fox’s The Orville) bonds over music with a student activist played by Wonjung Kim (Korea Musical Award for Best Actress, Ovation nominee for The Last Empress in L.A). In this strange and wonderful play that is a mix of unexpected whimsy, delightful comedy, profound despair and more than a little bit of magic, actress Jully Lee (Ladies at Boston Court, tokyo fish story at South Coast Rep) appears in many forms.

Helping make that magic happen is the Magic Castle’s Dominik Krzanowski, who will create original illusions for the production.

Hannah and the Dread Gazebo premiered at the 2017 Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, where the Mail Tribune called it “blisteringly original, acerbically funny, powerfully dramatic and deeply thought-provoking… If you’re keen to have your mind expanded by an evening of theater that is not going to be comparable to anything you’ll see anytime soon, Hannah and the Dread Gazebo is a good place to start.” Hannah has been selected as one of three finalists for its prestigious Francesca Primus Prize, sponsored by ATCA and the Francesca Ronnie Primus Foundation.

“I saw the world premiere in Ashland and was completely charmed by the play,” says Fountain Theatre co-artistic director Stephen Sachs. “I was enchanted by its whimsical, dreamlike surprises, and truly moved by its poignant revelation of a grandmother, mother and daughter relationship. Once the lights came up and the performance was over, I knew I wanted to present it at the Fountain.”

Sachs continues, “The Fountain is committed to diversity and inclusion, which makes this first-time partnership with East West Players very meaningful. It’s an invigorating sharing of resources, artists and audiences benefiting both companies and the communities we serve.”

“We are honored to partner with the Fountain on this production,” agrees East West Players artistic director Snehal Desai. “EWP first did a reading of the play in 2013, also directed by Jennifer Chang. The Fountain is a theater whose work and mission I have always admired; this seemed like the perfect project for our two companies to collaborate on, with its mix of humor, theatricality and timeliness.”

Hannah and the Dread Gazebo opens Aug. 17, with performances Fridays at 8 p.m.; Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Sundays at 2 p.m.; and Mondays at 8 p.m. (no 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday, Aug. 17; dark Monday, Aug. 19). Three preview performances will take place on Wednesday, Aug. 14; Thursday, Aug. 15; and Friday, Aug. 16, all at 8 p.m.

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In its ninth season, OC-centric: Orange County’s New Play Festival stages four compelling works from Orange County playwrights – plays that tell stories you don’t typically see in local theatre, stories that need to be told featuring 50% women playwrights.

OC-centric, which has been awarded the honor of Orange County’s “Best New Play Festival” by the OC WEEKLY, is the only theatre festival fully producing new works from dramatists who live in or hail from Orange County, and it features actors and directors who have worked in theatres in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Orange County and the Inland Empire. This year’s festival (August 15-25, 2019) is devoted to one-acts, and you can see all four of them at each performance.

The Plays by women are:

The Plays

Beethoven and Misfortune Cookies by Joni Ravenna
Directed by Allison Bergman | Featuring Rayshawn C. Chism

True story: a much-loved university music professor is abruptly fired after a white student complains about his frequent use of profanity and his decision to show a graphic image of a lynching in class. As Professor Thomas tries to figure out “what’s next,” he also looks back at his life and his Detroit childhood in the context of the Motown, jazz, and classical music he loves.

Thump in the Night by Lydia Oxenham
Directed by Katie Chidester | Featuring Vercylanne Bustos, Ryan Goldsmith, Hayley Jackson, Kim Kiedrowski, Melinda Oschmann, Grayson Richmond and Paisley Vaughn
Is investigating whether your elderly upstairs neighbor died in the middle of the night the best way to meet the rest of your neighbors? In this dark comedy, it is.

The festival also includes plays by Jordan R. Young and Ben Susskind.

Show Schedule (all plays can be seen at all performances):

8 evening performances:
Th-Sat, August 15-17 and Th-Sat, August 22-24 @ 8pm
Sun, August 18 and Sun, August 25 @ 7pm

4 afternoon performances:
Sat-Sun, August 17-18 and Sat-Sun, August 24-25 @ 2pm

OC-centric is produced by Tamiko Washington and Eric Eberwein and sponsored by the Department of Theatre and Dance at Chapman University.

More info: www.oc-centric.com

MOVING ARTS is delighted to announce the world premiere of EARLY BIRDS, written by Dana Schwartz and directed by Elizabeth Swain.

A heartwarming, irreverent comedy about two senior women, each at a crossroads, both escaping their past on a high-seas cruise. Together, they realize their strengths and celebrate their weaknesses, and understand that it’s never too late for a new friend or a new adventure.

The cast of EARLY BIRDS will feature: Wendy Elizabeth Abraham, Jean Gilpin and Jayne Taini.

EARLY BIRDS has assembled the following design and production team; Scenic Design is by John Iacovelli.  Lighting Design is by Martha Carter. Sound Design is by Jeff Gardner. Costume Design is by Carolyn Mazuca. The Production Stage Manager is Josie Austin. The Producer is Cece Tio.

EARLY BIRDS will preview on Friday, August 16 at 8pm; will open on Saturday, August 17 at 4:00pm & 8:00pm.

Performances are Fridays, Saturdays & Mondays at 8:00pm; Saturdays & Sundays at 4:00pm.

More info: www.movingarts.org

@movingarts

 

Theatre of NOTE continues its 2019 season with the world premiere of DRIVING WILDE by Jacqueline Wright, directed by Bart DeLorenzo.

DRIVING WILDE is Jacqueline Wright’s very free, very contemporary, shockingly frank and surreal adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s classic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wright transforms the gothic horror story into a present-day meditation on the pursuit of beauty. In Wright’s version, the beautiful young Dorian awakens from a coma with amnesia, unaware of his past and seeing the perfection of nature with fresh eyes. But how long can innocence last in a corrupting, aging world? Can beauty be kept, or is its fading as inevitable as death? A trip hop fantasy with existential themes.

The cast of DRIVING WILDE includes; Michael Kodi Farrow, Owen Ginley, Carl J. Johnson, Raven Moran, Stephen Simon, and David Wilcox.

DRIVING WILDE’s design team features the talents of scenic designer Song Yi Park; lighting designerBrandon Baruch; sound designer Martin Carillo; costume designer Ann Closs-Farley; video/projection designer Ben Rock.Props Laura Lengel; master carpenter Joe Jordan; graphic designer Michael Arcangeli; graphic production designer David Marina; associate director Lauren Campedelli. The production is stage managed by Kelly Egan, assistant stage managed by Sam Squeri.

DRIVING WILDE will preview on Friday and Saturday, August 16 and August 17 at 8pm and will open on Thursday, August 22.

Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 7pm.

For more info  www.theatreofnote.com

Connect @TheatreOfNOTE

FB Event  https://www.facebook.com/events/1285843724908025/

 

August 18 – September 8, 2019

 

TICKETS: http://OnStage411.com/Saugerties

$30 General Admission (All performances)

 

SAUGERTIES

Written by Susan Eve Haar

Directed by Abigail Zealey Bess

 

Starring

Chad L. Coleman (The Walking Dead)

Beau Garrett (Girlfriends Guide to Divorce)

 

Produced by Dovetail Productions/Sharon Levy

 

Set in a remote B&B in the not too distant future, SAUGERTIES tells the story of Jen (Garrett) and Rog (Coleman), who are celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary. She’s broken hearted over infertility, desperate to escape her life and Rog will do whatever it takes to make her happy. Twenty years later a couple not so different from the first return to the same B&B. There to scatter her mother’s ashes, they struggle with their relationship. Games become dangerous and they are forced to reveal secrets that may destroy them both.

 

This play, which tackles the ethics of new reproductive technologies, explores what it means to be human and grapples with what it means to love.

 

Running time: 90 minutes.

 

For more information, call 323-856-4252 or email info@hudsontheatre.com.

 

Hudson Guild Theatre

6539 Santa Monica Blvd 

Los Angeles, CA  90038

 

HUDSON THEATERS 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hudsontheatres/

Instagram (@HudsonTheatres): https://www.instagram.com/hudsontheatres

Twitter (@HudsonTheatres): https://twitter.com/hudsontheatres

#HudsonTheatres

 

CHAD L. COLEMAN 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialChadLColeman

Instagram (@ChadLColeman): https://www.instagram.com/chadlcoleman

Twitter (@ChadLColeman): https://twitter.com/ChadLColeman

 

BEAU GARRETT 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beaujgarrett

Instagram (@BeauJGarrett): https://www.instagram.com/beaujgarrett

Twitter (@BeauJGarrett): https://twitter.com/beaujgarrett

WEST COAST PREMIERE OF “WITCH”

Written by Jen Silverman (The Roommate, Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties) and directed by Marti Lyons (How to Defend Yourself, Boticelli in the Fire), this marks the first Geffen production to launch the 2019/2020 season, the second season programmed by Artistic Director Matt Shakman.

The cast features Emmy nominee and Golden Globe winner Maura Tierney (ER, The Affair) as Elizabeth Sawyer, as well as Brian George (Three Seasons, Stuff Happens) as Sir Arthur Banks, Ruy Iskandar (Macbeth, The Tempest) as Frank Thorney, Evan Jonigkeit (Sweetbitter, The Snow Geese) as Scratch, Vella Lovell (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Big Sick) as Winnifred and Will Von Vogt (Significant Other, Angels in America) in the role of Cuddy Banks.

Previews for Witch begin Tuesday, August 20; Opening night is Thursday, August 29.

Playing Tuesdays – Fridays at 8:00 p.m.; Saturdays at 3:00 and 8:00 p.m.; Sundays at 2:00 and 7:00 p.m.

In this fiendishly funny new play by Jen Silverman, inspired by The Witch of Edmonton by Rowley, Dekker and Ford, a charming devil arrives in the quiet village of Edmonton to bargain for the souls of its residents in exchange for their darkest wishes. Elizabeth should be the easiest to target, having been labeled a “witch” and cast out by the town, but her soul is not so readily bought. An inventive retelling of a Jacobean drama, this sharp, subversive fable debates how much our souls are worth when hope is hard to come by.

More info www.geffenplayhouse.org

@geffenplayhouse 

SOWN by Julie Taiwo Oni

Jones and Zora, young Black homeowners, find themselves at odds with their middle-class community when they decide to confront a strict American-only policy by planting a native African violet. While they initially defend this blatant infiltration of a monolithic landscape, a cycle of push-back and copy-cats eventually entangles them in madness. They must decide if they wish to stand up for the roots they’ve sown, or tear them down to maintain the status quo. This story explores the nightmare of contemporary segregation by placing its audience into a middle-class living-room-turned-battlefield.

Presented by MaiM Theatre Company & Son of Semele

Directed by Nathan Singh
Starring Victoria Allen & Joshua Michael Moore

Stage Manager: Jaime Mills
Sound Designer: Ike Quarles
Floral Expert: Mallory Browne

$20 general admission & $18 for patrons 25 and under

DATES & TIMES
–Friday August 23 at 8pm
–Saturday August 24 at 3pm & 8pm
–Sunday August 25 at 5pm
–Friday August 30 at 8pm
–Saturday August 31 at 3pm & 8pm
–Sunday September 1 at 5pm

For tickets & extra info: https://www.artful.ly/son-of-semele-ensemble

“The Joy Luck Club.” Adapted by Susan Kim from the novel by Amy Tan.

San Francisco, 1987. A quartet of Chinese women meet regularly at their Joy Luck Club to play Mah Jong and socialize. When the group’s founder passes away, her American-born daughter is invited to join the group.

The Joy Luck Club tells the story of four older Chinese-American women and their complex relationships with their American-born daughters. The play moves from China in the early 20^th Century and San Francisco from the 1950s to the 1980s, as the eight women struggle across a seemingly unpassable chasm of culture, generation and expectations to find strength and happiness,

The cast includes (in alphabetical order) Christopher Chen, Lee Chen, Victor Chi,  Debbie Fan, April Lam, Katharine Chen Lerner, Christine Liao, Sharline Liu, Peggy Lu, Nancy Ma, Grace Shen and Gloria Tsai..

Tim Dang directs.

Previews Friday, August 23 at 8:00 p.m. Opens Saturday, August 24, 2019 at 8:00 p.m. Runs through Saturday, October 5. Show times: Friday and Saturday at 8:00, Sun. at 2:30. There will also be Saturday matinees at 2:30 on September 7, 14, 21, 28 and October 5. There will also be a pay-what-you-can performance on Monday, September 30 at 8:00 p.m.

http://sierramadreplayhouse.org

Self-Injurious Behavior 

written by and starting Jessica Cavanaugh, directed by Marianne Galloway

Self-Injurious Behavior is based on Jessica Cavanagh’s own story of loss, love and survival in dealing with her son’s autism diagnosis.

When severely autistic, eleven-year-old Benjamin becomes a danger to himself, his divorced mother, Summer, makes the excruciating decision to admit him to a home for special needs kids. Seeking comfort, she visits her sisters in Portland who desperately and hilariously attempt to distract her with a weekend of escapism at the local renaissance faire. Plagued by haunting dreams of her son and memories of her marriage, she is forced to face the need to let go. Resonating across audience demographics thanks to the play’s bittersweet and unique blend of honesty and humor, in telling her story, Jessica Cavanagh has captured a voice that speaks to the power within us all to not only cope with our own “unimaginables” but to continue to live, making this a story not only about autism and motherhood, but about the resilience of the human spirit.

Self-Injurious Behavior‘s workshop was a runaway hit in Dallas (2018), where the writer/performer is based, and then New York City (April 2019), during National Autism Awareness Month.  Theatre 68’s Executive Producers Joe Mantegna and Ronnie Marmo decided to bring the show to Los Angeles for the World Premiere.

Starring Cavanaugh, the cast also includes Jude Segrest, Jonathan Brooks, Janie Haddad Tompkins, Jullian Cavanagh, Gisla Stringer, Madison Calhoun, Mitch Lerner.

The production is coupled with an effort to raise autism awareness and to reach out to the community of families living with loved ones on the spectrum, and those with autism themselves, through a special partnership with Autism Works Now.

Previews 8:00pm Friday, August 30 & Saturday, August 31;  2:00pm Sunday, September 1

Opens Saturday September 6 and plays Fridays at 8:00pm, Saturdays at 2:00pm & 8:00pm, and Sundays at 2:00pm

For more info, visit www.sibonstage.com