2020 Alley All New Festival Lineup Announced

The Alley Theatre announces the line-up for the 2020 Alley All New Festival, January 16 - January 26, 2020. The fifth annual festival will feature readings, workshop performances, and an early preview of seven new plays. Festival playwrights include Katie Bender, Vichet Chum, Arthur M. Jolly, Jiehae Park, Theresa Rebeck, C. Denby Swanson, and Sharr White. Special packages are available for the final weekend of the festival and include priority seating, exclusive artist access, and meals between performances. Packages can be booked now at alleytheatre.org/allnew or by calling the Box Office at 713-220-5700. Advance reservations for individual events are recommended and can be made on December 16 at alleytheatre.org. All readings and workshop performances are free and open to the public.

"One of the many strengths of the Alley All New Festival is its ability to support its writers at every step of the process. We have workshop performances, play readings, and even an early draft preview," said Alley Theatre Artistic Director Rob Melrose. "I'm particularly excited about the wide variety of subjects and styles in this year's festival: reevaluations of the histories of our Constitution and of the Battle of the Alamo, science fiction, a play that deconstructs family photographs, a play about high school drama, and a mystery of the disappearance of Agatha Christie. It is going to be a fabulous festival this year!"

Elizabeth Frankel, Director of New Work at the Alley, said "The line-up of the fifth annual Alley All New Festival features artists with a combination of Texas roots, Broadway credits, and national profiles. Some are frequent Alley collaborators while others make their Alley debuts. We are proud to present their plays which take a deeper look at the state of Texas and the state of our nation, examine the past, challenge our view of the future, as well as surprise and inspire."

The Alley All New Festival provides playwrights the resources needed to grow their work. The festival offers audiences a first look at plays that may appear in full productions at the Alley, as well as at theatres around the country. Last season, the Alley produced two full productions of former festival plays; The Carpenter by Robert Askins and Quack by Eliza Clark. This season, the Alley will produce Amerikin by Chisa Hutchinson which was developed in the last Alley All New Festival.

72 Miles to Go... by Hilary Bettis, Julliard playwright and writer on the Emmy-nominated television show "The Americans," will premiere Off-Broadway at Roundabout Theatre Company this winter, following development in the last festival. Also presented at 2019 festival, The Supreme Leader by Don Nguyen will have its world premiere in June 2020 at Dallas Theater Center.

Since the festival began four years ago, 19 of the 25 plays presented have gone on to world premiere productions, seven at the Alley and 12 elsewhere. The festival has been represented by at least one play off-Broadway each season for the past three seasons, with plays developed at the Alley also produced in Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Washington DC, Seattle, and Dallas among many other locations. Alley All New Festival plays have received both the Arnold L. Weissberger Award and the Obie Award for Best New American Play.

All presentations are free and open to the public. Alley All New programming is recommended for mature audiences. Each performance will be followed by a post-show conversation led by a member of the artistic staff.

All updates and schedules will be available at alleytheatre.org/allnew.

Full casting will be announced in 2020. The festival will feature the Alley Resident Acting Company in various roles.

To post a comment, you must register and login.