LAB RFSULTS: The Antaeus Playwrights Lab Festival Opens Today

Six new plays by award-winning, mid-career writers will have readings on Sept. 29 and Sept. 30 as part of the new Lab Results: The Antaeus Playwrights Lab Festival series at Antaeus Theatre Company.

Each of the plays presented as part of Lab Results was developed in the Antaeus Playwrights Lab, an ongoing program that incubates new works that provide compelling roles for actors, and creates a nurturing and supportive artistic community.

"The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which began as a three-day festival of two plays in 1935, is now an eight-month festival of 11 plays that includes classics, musicals and world premieres," note Antaeus co-artistic directors Bill Brochtrup, Rob Nagle and Kitty Swink. "We would love to see Antaeus grow in a similar way, by not only keeping the classics alive but also nurturing a new generation of modern classics. We hope the Playwrights Lab can play a significant role in that effort. Since we built our new home, our plan has been to produce in the black box theater. We are excited to activate this space in our 2018/19 season."

The six new plays include Along The River, Almost Winter, written by Paula Cizmar and directed by Stephanie Shroyer, an update of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale set along the Sacramento River Delta during the time of the Gold Rush and told from the point of view of a bear; The Abuelas, written by Stephanie Alison Walker and directed by Eli Gonda, which explores the long and devastating repercussions of Argentina's military dictatorship from 1976-1983; Mayor of the 85th Floor, written by Alex Goldberg and directed by Asaad Kelada, a dystopian tale about a young woman who is one of hundreds of squatters living in the Empire State Building in the near future; Regular Joes, written by Jennifer Rowland and directed by Jonathan Lynn, which reveals the private, family drama behind a public sex scandal; Unbound, written by Steve Apostolina and directed by Jennifer Chambers, about the meeting of a woman paroled after 33 years and the surviving member of the family she murdered; and Eight Nights, written by Jennifer Maisel and directed by Emily Chase, about the lives of a refugee woman and her family who inhabit a single apartment from 1949 to 2016.

Lab Results takes place over the course of the Sept. 29-30 weekend, with readings on Saturday at 11 a.m. (Along The River, Almost Winter), 1:30 p.m. (The Abuelas), 4 p.m. (Mayor of the 85th Floor) and 6:30 p.m. (Regular Joes); and on Sunday at 12 p.m. (Unbound) and 2 p.m. (Eight Nights). Single tickets are $15, with two-play packages available for $20. For more information call 818-506-1983 or go to www.antaeus.org.

Antaeus is located in the Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center, 110 East Broadway, Glendale, CA 91205 (between N. Brand Blvd. and Maryland Ave.). The first 90 minutes of parking is free, then $2 per hour, in Glendale Marketplace garage located at 120 S. Maryland Ave (between Broadway and Harvard). The theater is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible.

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