LAFPI

Rogue Machine at the Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90046 

Los Angeles, CA (October 1, 2026) – Winner of a 2026 Los Angeles New Play Project award, Joy Gregory’s provocative new work, Saint Megan, explores belonging and the price of challenging the world we live in. Joy participated in Rogue Machine’s second annual Playwright’s Roundtable where the script emerged, and became an Ojai Playwrights Conference finalist this year. It marks the first Playwright’s Roundtable script to be given a full production.

Saint Megan is inspired by the story of Megan Phelps-Roper, granddaughter of the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, a hyper-Calvinist sect notorious for its outrageous picketing of military funerals. As the play’s Megan defends her faith online, her curious mind and honest conversations threaten her ties to her family and the only community she has ever known.
Part family drama, part spiritual reckoning, part Twitter conversation—with music video parodies and Shaker dances—Saint Megan explores the long history of American Christian zealotry, our longing for salvation, and the moral courage it takes to face uncertainty. This play is a fictionalized dramatization inspired by real events and public figures. Certain scenes, timelines, and dialogue have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

“This production of Saint Megan continues and expands on our seasonal theme of Perception; Saint Megan challenges us to test the limits of our own compassion – of our willingness to try and understand our fellow humans. Even if those humans say and do things that we find reprehensible,” says Artistic Director Guillermo Cienfuegos. “Joy shared with me that had she not been invited to join the Rogue Machine Playwright’s Roundtable; she probably would not have written this play. I feel fortunate and proud that we made space for her to create this beautiful and important work – and that this story of great ersonal courage and the cost of sacrifice exists.”

Joy Gregory (Playwright) is a Peabody Award winner and three-time Humanitas nominee. She is a founding ensemble member of the Lookingglass Theatre Company, where she wrote and produced plays like All Souls Day and dreaming lucia. Her musical The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World was later produced at Playwrights Horizons, where it was nominated for a 2011 Drama Critics’ Circle Award and a Lucille Lortel Award. She co-adapted Studs Terkel’s Race: How Blacks and Whites Think & Feel About the American Obsession, with Ensemble Member David Schwimmer, for Lookingglass. Her play The Lonely Ape is coming soon to a midsize, struggling American theater near you. Gregory has been a writer and producer on Madam Secretary, The Resident, Switched at Birth, Scoundrels, Jericho, Devil in Ohio, Monarch, The Nine, Felicity, Joan of Arcadia, Windfall, Swingtown, and Trust Me. A feature film, Bury the Lede, about White House press correspondent Connie Lawn is in development with director Anna Shapiro and Hyde Park Pictures.

Director Lina Patel is drawn to plays that hold “irreconcilable things simultaneously – comedy and horror, love and cruelty, conviction and doubt. A central question for me with this play has been: what do we lose when our beliefs harden, and what might we find if they soften? How do we understand a loving, educated, often hilarious and sweet family and the cruel and destructive value system they live by? How did they come to believe what they do? At its heart, this is a mother-daughter tragedy, and a particularly American story – in the tradition of plays that ask what it costs a person to change their mind, like Tony Kushner’s Angels in America and Itamar Moses’ The Ally.”

Lina Patel (Director) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles whose work explores disability, non-traditional relationships, and power in an unstable world. Selected theatre: Bonobos (Flint Repertory; dir. Bernardo Cubría); Traces of Desire, commissioned by UCLA/Playwrights’ Arena and published by Bloomsbury UK (Jane Chambers Prize Honorable Mention), Sick Girl or Don’t Hate Me Cuz I’m Pretty (New Harmony Project, PlayFest Indy); Sankalpan, a Three Sisters adaptation (RADA Play Festival, London), The Ragged Claws (Cherry Lane Mentor Project, nominated by David Henry Hwang). Lina’s work has been commissioned and developed at Yale Repertory Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The New Group, Center Theatre Group, The Lark Playwrights’ Workshop at 2nd Stage, New Harmony Project, Chalk Repertory, Ammunition Theatre (Company Member), Artists at Play, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference (Walter E. Dakin Fellow). She received an NEA grant for her romp, Half-Breed Spy or, How I Learned to Love Imperialists (Circle X Theater). Lina is the Director of Rogue Machine’s Playwrights’ Roundtable. Last year, she was invited by Artistic Director Lily Tung Crystal to co-direct Stages of Our Stories: 60 Years of Asian American Theater, a commemorative event co-presented by East West Players and the Japanese American National Museum. On television, Lina has worked as Co-Producer on Ava DuVernay’s Cherish the Day, Executive Story Editor on Krypton (Warner Bros./DC), and Staff Writer on The 100 and Frequency. She is currently writing her first graphic novel with collaborator Aaron Simpson and illustrator E.J. Su.

CAST: Shannon Lee Clair (Amy/Theresa/Shaker Woman); Meg Cain (Grace Phelps); Rachel Sorsa (Shirley Phelps); Cordelia Leigh (Bekah Phelps); Caitlin Zambito (Megan Phelps); Zack Rocklin-Waltch (Chad).

PRODUCTION TEAM: Amanda Knehans (Scenic Design), Azra King-Abadi (Lighting Design), Christopher Moscatiello (Sound Design), Christine Cover Ferro (Costume Design), Grant Gerrard (Technical Director), Emmy Frevele (Movement Director and Choreographer), Victoria Hoffman (Casting), Justin Okin and Betsy Zajko (Producers), Emily Jerez (Associate Producer), Kila Kitu (Conversation Series Producer),

CONVERSATION SERIES: “We Could Still Be Happy…”

Following select Sunday performances, Rogue Machine will host four approximately 30-minute moderated conversations connecting Saint Megan to real-world questions, with subject-matter experts and audience discussion: Oct 18, 2026 — Know Thyself; Oct 25, 2026 — Somatic Practices; Nov 1, 2026 — Transitional Aged Youth Homelessness; and Nov 8, 2026 — Creating Boundaries. The series is included with admission; audience members may attend additional Conversation Series events at no additional expense.

Rogue Machine (founded in 2008) has become a pillar of Los Angeles’ vibrant theater scene through its commitment to producing new and significant contemporary plays. The company has earned critical acclaim for its bold programming and has been recognized with numerous awards. Notably, Rogue Machine has earned more than 30 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle awards including the unique distinction of being the only theater company to receive the Polly Warfield Award for Best Season by a Small to Midsized Theater four times—in 2011, 2016, 2023, and most recently for their 2025 season.

Additionally, Rogue Machine received three Ovation Awards for Outstanding Production of the Year and in 2017 they took home the Ovation Award for Best Season, standing out amongst major institutions like the Geffen Playhouse, the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts and Center Theatre Group. The company has produced more than 30 world premieres and 35 West Coast premieres, many of which have gone on to have a wider reach, including Kemp Powers’ One Night in Miami … (Academy Award nominee), John Pollono’s Razorback (now the film Riff Raff), Small Engine Repair, and Neil McGowan’s Lone-Anon (Loners), all of which were adapted into films. It is Rogue Machine’s mission to support local artists and playwrights and to offer new, thought-provoking theatre that deals with contemporary issues across all generations.

Saint Megan opens at 8pm on Saturday, October 10^th and runs 8pm Fridays, Saturdays, Mondays; 2pm Sundays through November 22, 2026 (no performance on Monday, October 12 or Saturday, October 31). Rogue Machine at the Matrix Theatre, is located at 7657 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046. Tickets are $45 for general seating on Fridays, Sundays and Mondays; $35 for Seniors; $60 on Saturdays; $45 for Seniors; Students: $25 at the box office on a first come, first served basis during the hour before the show. Show4Less on Fridays Oct 16 ($15+), Oct 23 ($20+), Oct 30 ($20), Nov 6 ($25). Reservations: https://roguemachine.ludus.com/show_page.php?show_id=200531238 or for more information (213) 282-8185.