The Vagrancy Announces Blossoming: A New Play Reading Series

May 18th, May 19th, May 21st & May 26th, The Vagrancy announces BLOSSOMING: a new play reading series. The Vagrancy annually selects six playwrights with diverse perspectives to join their playwright's group. Beginning each fall, the writers meet regularly as they craft their plays. The Vagrancy hosts two development workshops wherein the plays are explored with the playwright, actors and a director in a rehearsal setting. BLOSSOMING is the first public reaching of the six original plays. Come be inspired, have a glass of wine, and help the play's development along with post-reading audience talk-backs.

SATURDAY, MAY 18TH

4 PM: TACITURN BEINGS by Iibrecht Baker, Directed by Tamiyka White. Featuring Bri'Unia Stock, Gloria Bigelow, Cathy D. Tomlin, Candice Mosby, Joyce 'JC' Thomas, and Allison Andreas

Synopsis: In the Night Child, the womxn are gated by their own rules, tend their gardens, and revel in their company while being anchored by Oni, an elder who knows the community's herstories. When the womxn's lives begin to uncoil, Oni helps them recombine with their unremembered parts of themselves.

SUNDAY, MAY 19TH

4 PM: PLAY #1 WHO PUT BELLA IN THE WYCH ELM? by Katherine Vondy, Directed by Jessie Lee Mills. Featuring Amelia Phillips, Adelaide Lummis, Cassidy Davis, Brad Griffith, Natalie Reiko, Kristin Mothersbaugh, Ron Morehouse, AJ Clark, Paul David Story and Nicky Romaniello.

Synopsis: While wandering Worcester, England in 1943 in search of bird eggs, a teenage boy happened upon the skeleton of an unidentified woman inside the trunk of a large tree. An investigation commenced to determine who the woman was and how she died, but it raised more questions than it answered. Was she a spy? Was she a prostitute? Had she been part of an occult ritual? Theories abounded, but no definitive answers emerged. Then graffiti began to appear around town, asking a question that remains unanswered to this day...

WHO PUT BELLA IN THE WYCH ELM? uses the historical mystery to explore the ways in which society imposes identities on women, and ultimately ask how much it's possible to truly know another person.

7PM: PLAY #2 NURSE CADDEN by Kate Mickere, Directed by Kate Motzenbacker. Featuring Betsy Moore, Taylor Hawthorne, Megan DeHart, Danielle Gonzales, David Bickford, and Alison Stolpa.

Synopsis: Everyone living in mid-century Dublin knows Mamie Cadden - she's the boorish woman who motors around the city in her bright red sports car. She also happens to be a notorious backstreet abortionist who profits off the secrets of Dublin's most powerful men. When the body of pregnant Helen O'Reilly is found dumped outside of Mamie's flat, the infamous nurse is sentenced to hang. Can a Divine intervention save Nurse Cadden's soul before it's too late?

MONDAY, MAY 21ST

7PM: SLUR by Ilana Turner, Directed by Diana Wyenn. Featuring Karina Wolfe, Bart Tangredi, Joseph Will, Francesca Ling, Christopher Redman, Nicky Romaniello, Sheila Edmiston, and Cathy Diane Tomlin.

Synopsis: In pre-World War One England, Maud Allan rises to world fame as one of the first 'modern' dancers, only to sue for criminal libel an ultra-conservative member of Parliament who accuses her of promoting sexual deviancy via her performances. Slur delves into the hypocrisy of moral mandates for women, how the legal system can be wielded as a weapon to suppress artists, and the effects of guilt by association.

SUNDAY, MAY 26TH

3:30 PM: PLAY #1 INTERTWINED by Tracy Held Potter, Directed by Gleason Bauer. Featuring Intae Kim, Bree Wernicke, Eddie Mui, Elaine Kao, Paul Mackley, Tamar Fortgang, and Megan DeHart.

Synopsis: It's 1906 and Chinese immigrant Win Chow has fled his home country to create a better life for himself in San Francisco. After establishing a successful business, Win gets closer to his dream, but laws banning interracial marriage are pulling him from the woman he loves while anti-immigration laws push him towards a Chinese woman he barely knows.

6:30 PM: PLAY #2 MOLLY by Howard Ho, Directed by Arthur Keng. Featuring Travis Dixon, Donzell Lewis, Paul Turbiak, Jessica Rau, Danielle Reynolds Maggie Dorfman, Janet Song and Kristin Mothersbaugh.

Synopsis: A Musical Journey through the surprising rise and fall of Ecstasy, the drug that changed how we groove and move. From her birth in a German lab in 1912 to the Rave scene's Summer of Love in 1988, Molly sings her intoxicating song and forever changed the way we feel for real.

WHERE: Lyric Hyperion Theatre & Cafe - 2106 Hyperion Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90027

TICKETS: PAY WHAT YOU WANT. Cash and Credit Card Accepted

STAGE MANAGER: Megan Brister

THE VAGRANCY is a bold Los Angeles-based theatre company that creates visceral work that seeks to touch the human spirit. Caitlin Hart, Founder & Artistic Director; Bruce Hart, Managing Director; Katherine Vondy, Writer's Group Moderator; Nicolette Acosta, Public Relations; Maia Kazin, Assistant to Artistic Director; Schuyler Girion, Social Media; Andrew Walke, Storage Manager; Alfredo Trueba, Company Videographer; Allison Andreas, Box Office Manager; Danielle Gonzales, Steve Madar, Michal Sinnott, Karina Wolfe, Arthur Keng, Creative Partners.

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