Moonbox Productions' Presents First Ever Boston New Works Festival, June 23- 26

Moonbox Productions has announced its first ever Boston New Works Festival taking place June 23rd - June 26th at the Calderwood Pavilion and the Boston Center for the Arts. The Boston New Works Festival will be a weekend long festival celebrating new original plays by local playwrights.

The plays will take place on five different stages at the Calderwood Pavilion and the Boston Center for the Arts on Thursday, June 23rd 7:30 - 9:30, Friday, June 24th 7pm - 10pm, Saturday, June 25th 4pm - 10pm, and Sunday, June 26th 3pm - 9pm. Tickets are $25 for an individual show, $50 for a Day Pass (available Fri, Sat, or Sun) and $125 for a Festival Pass (Thurs - Sun) and are available at bostontheatrescene.com or by calling 617-933-8600. Pay what you wish tickets are available at the box office. For a complete list of show dates and times go to moonboxproductions.org.

During the pandemic shut down, Moonbox productions pivoted from normal operations to launch this new initiative dedicated to cultivating new works by local artists. A request for proposals was sent out in the fall of 2020 and over sixty-five submissions from local playwrights were received. From those sixty-five proposals, a diverse panel of judges chose seven original theatrical pieces. Throughout the past year, the selected submissions have gone through an extensive workshop process that will culminate in the stage productions taking place this June.

"Seven original plays, performed on 5 different stages over the course of four days, a can't believe it's actually happening," said Producer Sharman Altshuler. "New works have been on Moonbox's short list forever, but it wasn't until COVID - with all of its undeniably disastrous ramifications - that we suddenly found ourselves with the time and space to finally dive in. We have always sought to staff and cast our shows exclusively from the local Boston community, and to be able to extend that commitment now to the support and showcasing of local playwrights and theater-creators is deeply exciting and gratifying! The Boston area is teeming with creative talent, and an annual Festival will create a fun, accessible, welcoming, and exciting event that all communities in the greater Boston area and beyond can participate in and enjoy together," said Altshuler.

Selected playwrights and plays for the 2022 Boston New Works Festival include:

Surrey Houlker - For the Fish

Directed by Shira Gitlin

The Plaza Black Box Theatre

Friday, June 24th - 8pm

Saturday, June 25th - 8pm

Sunday, June 26th - 3pm

For the Fish is a play that enables the audience to take a step back from urban "liberal utopias" and a step towards queerness in the footnotes of America. It's 1974, and we're somewhere deep in rural America. Thirteen-year-old Susanna goes fishing with her uncle every Sunday, and it's an almost-religious respite for the two of them. But Susanna's fierce attachment to animals, absolute disdain for her first name, and estrangement from the men in her life keep her precariously perched between normality and disaster. As the year draws to a close, Susanna and her uncle draw closer, bonded by an understanding very few in their town will ever share.

Kathleen Cahill & Michael Wartofsky - Late, A New Musical

Directed by Bridget O'Leary

Roberts Studio Theatre

Thursday, June 23rd - 7:30pm

Saturday, June 25th - 4pm

Sunday, June 26th - 7pm

Late is a musical and was written as a way to express the writer's heartbreak about the murder of American school children through gun violence. First day back. School was closed, but now it's open again. Billie is hiding in the supply closet - her refuge - preparing the speech she's going to make at the school assembly. Her friends are outside the door, telling her she needs to hurry up, it's starting. But what is "it"? The assembly? Or the memory of that day? ... A day in the life of Billie, Charlotte, Makala, Jake, Katie, Vernell, Ryan, Autumn, and Cole. An ordinary American day for nine ordinary American kids. Only some survived.

Kai Clifton - Queens

Directed by Kai Clifton

The Plaza Theatre

Friday, June 24th - 8pm

Saturday, June 25th - 4pm

Sunday, June 26th - 5:30pm

Queens is a play about four queer black men living in New York City. Through storytelling that combines poetry, rhythm, and song, we follow Sky, Bobbi, Alex, and Adrienne as they discover all the juiciness adulthood has to offer from careers to friendship, love, and sex. Amid it all, they fight for their masculinity, confronting societal pressures without apology.

Catherine Giorgetti - Rocky Relationships

Directed by Katie A. Clark

Deane Hall

Thursday, June 23rd - 7:30pm

Saturday, June 25th - 6:30pm

Sunday, June 26th - 5pm

Rocky Relationships is a movement play about relationships. As tides shift and waves crash, they push and shove the rocks on the beach into new and unexpected places. As we descend to see life through the rocks' ever-shifting perspective, we gain a new insight into the ways in which we, too, drift in and out of each other's lives.

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Gabby Simone Preston - Silt

Directed by Gabby Simone Preston

Deane Hall

Friday, June 24th - 7pm

Saturday, June 25th - 5pm

Sunday, June 26th - 7:30pm

Silt is a play about an impossible conversation about unconscious racial violence and how it changes relationships. In an imagined world without accountability, both author and audience confront reality together. Will they - and will the characters - choose acknowledgement or ignorance? Silt offers a challenging and cathartic experience of racial conflict that is at once poetic and disturbing.

David Coleman - Sister School

Directed by Maura Tighe

Roberts Studio Theatre

Friday, June 24th - 8pm

Saturday, June 25th - 8pm

Sunday, June 26th - 3pm

Sister School is a musical that explores the world of an all-girls high school whose time may just be up and the girls who will sing their way into the hearts of all who have ever asked the question, "is this the place for me?"

"I hate this school!" echoes through the halls of the Victoria School for Girls, one of the oldest single-gender institutions in America. Can a new student, a returning alum, and the head of school change the narrative to show us that single-gender schools are relevant? And will they be open to recognizing other genders?

Rebecca Wright & Kelvyn Koning - The Prince and the Painter

Directed by Rudy Ramirez

Martin Hall

Friday, June 24th - 7pm

Saturday, June 25th - 8pm

Sunday, June 26th - 3pm

In this new fantasy musical, the Hero's Journey meets the brilliance and queerness of the Jazz Age. After its magic disappears, the country of Fidan is crumbling. Ylber Sassoun, a rebellious young artist, unwittingly holds the key to its survival - but he's busy trying to outrun his own terrible secret. As he struggles, he befriends a movie starlet, her fiancée, and a strange, serious boy. Will Ylber and his friends be able to untangle the mystery of the vanished magic before their country - and perhaps reality itself - collapse around them?

For more information about the Boston New Works Festival, go to www.moonboxproductions.org.

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