The SheLA Arts Summer Theater Festival is back in Los Angeles, this year at Rogue Machine Theatre. The 2026 Festival features four plays and one musical, and we’re glad to be able to profile the femme writers again, getting to know them and these new works a bit better through a few questions.
Ashley Denise Robinson – Writer/director of “The Partner Or, The Sou-Sou Play”
The Play: Every Tuesday night, five first-generation women meet to exchange money, gossip, and insults. Their deepest secrets are pulled out of the shadows when a new, non- Caribbean member joins the group. “The Partner, or The Sou-Sou Play” pulls at the threads of how tightly we can hold on to our secret lives, no matter the cost.
LAFPI: Where did this play come from and why were you compelled to write it?
Ashley Denise Robinson: It was important for me to write the sou-sou play because I wanted to see more first generation, Caribbean and African women on stage. Sou-sou was something that I had just recently learned about and I wanted people to understand this very old very traditional form of money saving that came out of West Africa. I also wanted to send a play around a topic that I personally hadn’t seen before. I think writing the sou-sou play has reinforced the power of women, specifically Black women, and the power of community and also how trying to smooth over the circle can cause fractures that may never be able to be mended.
LAFPI: What do you hope is next for your play?
Ashley: Global dominance. Because sou-sou is a global practice, I’d love to see the show in different countries, different languages, with different people taking on these characters. I’d also love for audience members to see these women and themselves, and to have something to relate to in terms of first generation stories, complicated, love stories, black women stories.
LAFPI: What should someone ask you about your work?
Ashley: “How many commissions can you take on this year?” “Are you available to be out of the country writing for the next 6 months?” “Where can we house you in NYC/London for the Broadway run and West End runs?”
Chandler Patton – Book writer of “Ghostlight,” a new musical
The Play: Leah just can’t catch a break. After bombing her audition for the revival of her dream show — “Ghostlight”, the story of 19th-century Pre-Raphaelite poet-painters Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal — she and her best friend Jen are about to give up on their dreams. Then they get the call. As they rehearse, argue, and create, the line between reality and theatricality blurs, forcing them to face the truths about their characters, themselves…and the pasts that haunt them still. This is a real play about a fake musical.
LAFPI: What made it important for you to write this play?
Chandler Patton: I wanted to explore the addictive, electric energy of collaboration–to capture, in real time, that magic that all theatre artists pursue. It’s a story about how artists turn their pain into beauty, and to me, the tragic story of Elizabeth Siddal is the perfect example of this.
LAFPI: Which playwrights do you find most inspiring?
Chandler: I’m a dramaturg, so too many to name. This play in particular was heavily inspired by Venus in Fur by David Ives. Unfortunately a lot of the best plays I’ve ever read have been unproduced and by struggling writers… but I’m very inspired by that. Here’s to all the epic plays gathering dust in desk drawers as we speak.
LAFPI: What do you wish someone would ask you about your work?
Chandler: I’d secretly love to be asked about the uncanny woo-woo experiences I had writing the play…about how I would create specific details in the story that I thought I was inventing, only to come across them deep in the historical record and find out that I was correct.
“Ghostlight,” book by Chandler Patton, music & lyrics by Steven James Schmidt and directed by Andrew Ceglio, plays July 8 at 7:30pm, July 11 at 8:30pm
Bridget Flanery – Writer/director of “Litter”
The Play: A backpack is surreptitiously thrown out of an Uber on a Des Moines highway. When the bag’s gruesome contents are discovered, Detectives Merritt and Van Roekel track down and interrogate the 15 year-old passenger responsible for the “littering”.
LAFPI: Why did you want to write this play?
Bridget Flanery: I hadn’t seen these people or these circumstances before on stage or film and that drove my writing process. I tried to explore the humanity of their struggles and their aches and give reason or make sense of what might seem controversial behavior and action.
LAFPI: Do you see a lot of plays?
Bridget: I attend a great deal of Theatre and I read a lot of plays. I will always feel like there is something sacred about sitting in a live audience in that darkened space, experiencing the art form where anything can happen.
LAFPI: Are there playwrights who inspire you?
Bridget: Oh, gosh, there are SO many. Anton Chekhov, Lillian Hellman, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, August Wilson, Lynn Nottage, Lauren Gunderson, Sarah Ruhl, Duncan MacMillan… I could go on forever.
“Litter,” written and directed by Bridget Flanery, plays July 10 at 7:30pm and July 11 at 12:00pm
Caroline Ullman – Writer/director of “Role Models”
The Play: Jack and his older sister Willa haven’t spoken in months, since she moved to New York without him. When he finally agrees to pay Willa a visit and see her new life, he discovers that Willa’s new boyfriend Peter is someone he already knows and he must decide whether or not to tell Willa his secret and risk ruining the trip, and possibly their relationship as well.
LAFPI: What made you want to write this play?
Caroine Ullman: My favorite plays to write center on young people navigating messy relationships. I love coming of age stories about people making mistakes and learning from them (or not!) and ultimately seeing how the relationships evolve and change over time. This was my initial approach to writing “Role Models,” and the characters and plots began to flow.
LAFPI: And how has it been, taking the next steps into production?
Caroline: Having the opportunity to premiere my work with the team at SheLA is always a dream! I feel so lucky to spend time with such a collaborative, supportive group of artists. I’m excited to see this play on its feet for the first time, and how it will continue to grow and evolve from there.
LAFPI: As a writer, are there playwrights who have influenced you?
Caroline: One playwright I’ve always admired is Annie Baker. Reading her work growing up was definitely foundational to my own writing. I love losing myself in her characters’ dialogue and the complex relationships she crafts.
Jenn Melyan – Writer of “Her Way (隨 她而流)“
The Play: Summoned home to her mother’s apartment in Kaoshiung, Jessica walks into an ambush: her mother, Anita, has stage 4 cancer, and a deadline. Anita wants to die with dignity by week’s end, and she wants Jessica’s help. As a typhoon locks the family inside, pressure builds, secrets spill, and love turns volatile. With her father, Gary, caught in the middle, this darkly funny, emotionally explosive drama asks: can a mother and daughter forgive each other before time runs out?
LAFPI: Why did you write this play?
Jenn Meylan: I wrote this play because I wanted to share a story from a deeply personal and distinctly Taiwanese perspective that is rarely seen on stage. Through the story, I explore questions of death, family, and dignity at the end of life, and the difficult choices that accompany serious illness. My hope is to create space for meaningful conversations about death and family dynamics.
LAFPI: Which playwrights do you find most inspiring?
The playwrights I find most inspiring are actually the ones who are working on developing new works and putting their writing out there. I am part of a group of mostly women writers who regularly develop new works and give each other critiques – I find those playwrights most inspiring bc it takes a tremendous amount of courage to write, share, and receive feedback on shitty first drafts.
LAFPI: What would you like audiences to ask you about this play?
Jenn: Where the story came from, what parts are from everyday life, and what parts are uniquely from the Taiwanese diaspora.
“Her Way (隨 她而流)”, by Jenn Melyan and directed by Hannah Eden Chodos, plays July 11 at 6:00pm and July 12 at 1:30pm
The SheLA Summer Theatre Festival runs Tuesday, July 7 – Sunday, July 12. For more information and to purchase tickets, go to shenycarts.org/she-la – Use code LAFPI20 at checkout for 20% off all ticket orders!
