Alliance Announces Inaugural Festival Of New Works

The Alliance Theatre will showcase the finalists of the 16th Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition and the projects of the 6th Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab with a week-long festival of free staged readings and presentations, March 30 - April 3, 2020. Since the launch of these two programs in 2003 and 2013, the Alliance has produced 18 world premiere productions from new and emerging playwrights and has supported the development of scores of other new plays.

53% OF, by Steph Del Rosso, directed by Candis C. Jones and winner of the 2019/20 Alliance Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition, will have its world premiere on the Alliance's Hertz Stage from March 28 - April 19, 2020. Tickets are available for purchase. Inspired by the finding that 53% of white women voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election, 53% OF is a humorous, even-handed, and strikingly honest examination of Americans on both sides of the debate about what will truly make America great again.

FESTIVAL OF NEW WORKS SCHEDULE:

Monday, March 30:

HONORS U.S. HISTORY

(Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab project)

6:30 p.m., Selig Family Black Box

By Jake Krakovsky

Directed by Ibi Owolabi

Additional project artists include Jane Foley (Set, Properties, Projections, Sound), Emily Kleypas (Production Consultant), and Ryan Heazel (Historical Consultant)

On the last day of 7th grade, Mr. Miller is trying to bring an inspirational close to the year's curriculum - but his classroom is revolting! One well-meaning teacher battles with a sentient SmartBoard, haunted projections, and voices from the past over the contested mythology of our national narrative.

Tuesday, March 31:

MONSTER

(Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition Finalist)

2:30 p.m., Selig Family Black Box

By Ava Geyer (UCSD)

Directed by January LaVoy

When self-help guru Drew Capuano's compulsive masturbation comes to light, he retains the services of the only person who will still represent him: his power hungry twenty-four year-old female assistant. Meanwhile, survivor Mona Giotti works to make sure she's put Drew away for good. Monster is a brutal and brutally funny odyssey through America's media machine that puts perpetrator and survivor on a collision course of reckoning.

THE YELLOW WALLPAPER

(Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab Project)

7:30 p.m., Selig Family Black Box

By Hannah Church

Music & Lyrics by Julia Appleton and Francy Goudreault

Directed by Jaclyn Hofmann

Additional project artists include Sarah Newby Halicks, Alli Lingenfelter (Music Director), Michael Paterson (Orchestrator), Cody Russell (Design), and Miche' Smith (Choreographer)

Energized for a new generation with an expanded story and modern original music, The Yellow Wallpaper is a musical adaptation of the celebrated short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This haunting show tells of a rising writer and new mother who is afflicted with postpartum depression at the turn of the 19th century. She's subjected to the "rest cure", a misguided but popular treatment at the time: forced to give up writing, and isolated to a chilling room papered floor-to-ceiling in a ghastly shade of yellow. The young woman's descent into madness unspools before our eyes as she's enchanted by a mysterious, frightening realm behind the yellow wallpaper.

Wednesday, April 1:

UNKINDNESS

(Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition Finalist)

2:30 p.m., Selig Family Black Box

By Logan Faust (NYU Tisch)

Directed by Matt Torney

Unkindness tells the story of Bonnie, a grieving mother, and Elijah, a would-be prophet, as they struggle to survive after their only motivations for survival, their son and faith respectively, are taken from them. When a desperate young mother with a dying child comes to them for help, they must confront the only question that matters at the End of the World: what will you do to survive? Inspired by Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood, the Bible's First Book of Kings, and the murder-spree of Bonnie and Clyde, Unkindness is one Southerner's attempt to reconcile the destructive and redemptive elements of our myriad, modern-day interpretations of faith.

KENDEDA PLAYWRIGHTS' ROUNDTABLE

5:30 p.m., Selig Black Box

Moderated by Rachel Karpf

Featuring the Alliance/Kendeda finalists, winners and local Atlanta playwrights moderated by Rachel Karpf, Artistic Producer, WP Theater, NYC, NY

Thursday, April 2:

DJARUM VANILLA

(Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition Finalist)

2:30 p.m., Selig Family Black Box

By Cary Simowitz (UCLA)

Directed by Lydia Fort

November 2014. Missouri. The Darren Wilson verdict is imminent. Protests are becoming a daily part of life in Ferguson. The nascent Black Lives Matter movement is gaining national traction as racial tension in Missouri reaches a boiling point. To make matters worse, rumors perpetuated by the media are spreading about the possibility of a race war igniting between a group of black teenagers and Bosnian immigrants. Meanwhile, ten miles away from Ferguson at an aging gas station/autobody shop, an unlikely friendship is fostered between a twenty-one-year-old black man named Malcolm and a poverty-stricken, seventeen-year-old white girl named Bex after the pair discover a secret hidden beneath the front seat of an abandoned Maserati. In the coming weeks, Malcolm and Bex are forced to test the boundaries of their friendship as the two are confronted with the harsh reality of living in a changing, unjust America.

Friday, April 3:

STITCHED WITH A SICKLE AND A HAMMER

(Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition Finalist)

2:30 p.m., Selig Family Black Box

By Inna Tsyrlin (Ohio University)

Directed by Lauren Morris

Aleksandra, a political prisoner at a GULAG camp and part of the camp's theatre troupe, is forced to help Soviet authorities disguise the existence of the camp in front of a visiting American delegation. She prepares for two roles: the character on stage - Nina from Chekhov's The Seagull - and the role of an actor who isn't imprisoned. In the face of totalitarian power, inside and outside the camp, Aleksandra must decide whether to comply with the regime that has taken away her freedom or commit an act of counterrevolution.

PRISONTOWN

(Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab Project)

7:30 p.m., Selig Family Black Box

By Lee Osorio

Directed by Rachel Parish

Additional project artist includes Angela Farr Schiller, Dramaturg

In small, Southern Prisontown, the only decent paying jobs are at the immigration detention center. But with the arrival of a new inmate, everyone is forced to question the foundations on which they've built their lives and how far they're willing to go to protect them.

Tickets for the Festival of New Works are free and open to the public. www.alliancetheatre.org/festivalofnewworks.

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