South Coast Repertory has announced the lineup for the 27th Pacific Playwrights Festival (PPF), anchored by two world premieres of fully staged productions. Recognized nationally as one of the most anticipated showcases of playwriting excellence and part of the theatre’s play development initiative—The Lab@SCR—PPF runs May 2-4.
Serving as festival anchors are the previously announced world-premiere productions of You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World!, by Keiko Green, and The Staircase by Noa Gardner. New to the lineup are five staged readings: rachel, nevada by jose sebastian alberdi, The Red Man by JuCoby Johnson, Eat Me by Talene Monahon, Ten Grand by Kate Cortesi and Trip Around the Sun by Jake Brasch.
“This group of plays, while disparate in its stories and styles, feels like a collective reminder of how important it is to come together and pay witness to humanity,” said Andy Knight, PPF Co-Director and Director of The Lab@SCR. “Each play offers its own unique look at the intricacies of human relationships. In these stories, families fall apart, and families come back together again; loved ones hold on too tightly while learning to let go; and lost souls find solace in unexpected people and places. Life is fragile, but living is for the tenacious. In a way, this Pacific Playwrights Festival looks at how complicated it is to keep on living—and how deeply we need each other to do it.”
Both You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World! and The Staircase were developed from previous PPFs. You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World! was featured in 2024 and The Staircase was featured in 2023.
“We welcome you to South Coast Repertory’s 27th Pacific Playwrights Festival, which features an astounding lineup of new work,” Ivers said. “Each world premiere underscores the intimate and sprawling intricacies of our collective humanity—and beyond! I’ve truly never been more excited to challenge our audiences and peer practitioners with material of this caliber.”
Immediately after the 3:30 p.m. Friday reading of The Red Man, the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) will present the Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award. One of the most prestigious honors a new play can receive, the Steinberg Award recognizes the best scripts premiering professionally outside of New York City. Past award winners include Cambodian Rock Band, I & You and Vietgone—plays largely developed, in part, at South Coast Repertory. Both Cambodian Rock Band and Vietgone became SCR productions.
The weekend also includes a free panel discussion with this year’s festival playwrights on Sunday, May 4, from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. The panel will be moderated by SCR Artistic and Audience Engagement Associate H. Adam Harris.
“The plays for this year's festival ask us to consider what it is to reach for the things or people that protect or nourish us in this complicated world,” PPF Co-Director and Associate Artistic Director Kim Martin-Cotten said. “They invite us to reflect on what is asked of us in the moments that challenge all equilibrium; when certainty falls away and we are pushed into a new landscape that is a departure from—or a return to—what we might call home. We are deeply excited about these seven exceptional writers!”
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