Southern California Theatre Artists to Take Part in AFTER ORLANDO

Missing Bolts Productions (Blair Baker and Zac Kline, Artistic Directors) and NoPassport Theatre Alliance & Press (Caridad Svich, Founder) have announced After Orlando, an international theatre action in response to the Pulse Nightclub shootings in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016.

In Southern California, future readings are scheduled at Theatre @ Boston Court (11/15), The Road Theatre and SacRed Fools (both on 12/5), and more to be announced. Several readings have already occurred in Los Angeles (Ensemble Studio Theatre LA, East West Players, CSULB), with more in the process of being confirmed at other theatres and universities.

After Orlando is comprised of more than 70 short plays written in response to the horrific events of June 12 in Orlando. The plays, which vary in duration from less than two minutes to six-and-a-half minutes, cover searing, emotional issues - gun violence, anti-Latino prejudice, LGBTQ rights, Islamophobia - as well as personal responses to tragedy, such as a worried mother being unable to sleep and fast food employees providing boxes of chicken to blood donors. Source material included police radio transmissions from the massacre, phrases from victims' obituaries published in the Orlando Sentinel and the playwrights' rich imaginations.

Some of the established and emerging playwrights participating in Southern California include (in alphabetical order) Mia Chung, Migdalia Cruz, Israel Horowitz, Deborah Zoe Laufer, EM Lewis, Anders Lustgarten, Erik Mayer-Garcia, Jeff McMahon, Ryan Oliveira, Matthew Paul Olmos, Emilio Rodriguez, Lisa Schlesinger, Dave Solomon, Ken Urban, and Leah Nanako Winkler, to name only a few.

The USC School of Dramatic Arts has taken an innovative approach to the After Orlando project. Using its on-campus professional sound studio, first year MFA acting students recorded 12 plays which may be heard on a podcast at soundcloud.com/user-166374875/sets/after-orlando-usc through December 11. The playwrights represented are (in alphabetical order) Amina Henry, Zac Kline, Neil LaBute, Jennifer Maisel, Rogina Malik, Oliver Mayer, Katie Pearl, brian james Polak, Sung Rno, Ian Rowlands, Caridad Svich, and Kord Tuttle.

On Monday, November 7, the following venues in San Diego presented readings: Old Globe and Diversionary Theatres, San Diego Repertory Theatre, Moxie Theatre Company, and Inner Mission Productions.

Readings are being held across the United States throughout this fall season. These will include (or have included) Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre (NYC), Philadelphia Theatre Company & University of the Arts, The Inge Center (Kansas), and Roundhouse Theatre (Washington, DC). There will be a marathon reading at Finborough Theatre in London and two readings in Orlando, including one at Orlando Shakespeare Theatre.

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