Atlantic Theater Company to Present FIRST GEN MIXFEST Featuring Work by Ngozi Anyanwu, Roger Q. Mason & More

Atlantic Theater Company will present First Gen MixFest, a series of free readings co-produced by playwrights Ngozi Anyanwu and Sanaz Toossi, that will run at Atlantic's Linda Gross Theater from Monday, August 8th through Wednesday, August 17th, 2022.

Atlantic will present readings of full-length plays by Ngozi Anyanwu, Katie Đỗ, Keiko Green, and Alex Riad. Additionally, Atlantic Theater Company has commissioned Bleu Beckford-Burrell, Shayan Lotfi, Roger Q. Mason, and juliany taveras to create short one-acts and present them as an evening of readings.

Co-Producer Ngozi Anyanwu says, "It was so exciting to read so many plays from my fellow first generation playwrights and talking about them with Sanaz. I wish we could have done a reading for all of them. But we hope you enjoy the artists that the Atlantic will be showcasing during this year's MixFest as we explore stories by children of immigrants."

Co-Producer Sanaz Toossi added, "I am thrilled to be co-curating this year's First Gen MixFest at my artistic home with the legendary Ngozi Anyanwu. MixFest launched my career and I'm honored to be back at the Atlantic with Ngozi and our spectacular lineup of full length plays and commissioned artists."

Atlantic Artistic Director Neil Pepe adds, "We are thrilled to once again bring MixFest to audiences in person, as it's always been an opportunity to bring communities together in our space. It's even more special to have Ngozi and Sanaz as co-producers- it's been a joy to work with them this season and have them in the Atlantic family."

Admission is free. Reservations are required. Please visit https://atlantictheater.org/first-gen-mixfest2022 to RSVP.

MEET THE WRITERS

Monday, August 8th | 7 PM

First Gen MixFest will kick off with a group panel moderated by Co-Producers Sanaz Toossi and Ngozi Anyanwu. The panel will also include Katie Đỗ, Shayan Lotfi, Alex Riad and juliany taveras. Learn more about the writers in the festival, their creative process and what inspires their work.

SHORT PLAYS

by Bleu Beckford-Burrell, Shayan Lotfi, Roger Q. Mason, and juliany taveras

Directed by NJ Agwuna and Borna Barzin

Tuesday, August 9th | 7 PM

Readings of four commissioned short plays by Bleu Beckford-Burrell, Shayan Lotfi, Roger Q. Mason, and juliany taveras.

QUALITY CELLULAR

by Alex Riad

Directed by Padraic Lillis

Wednesday, August 10th | 7 PM

During the height of the Great Recession in 2009, an Egyptian-American teenager is forced to work in his divorced parents' failing cell phone shop the summer before college, coming of age as he sees the troublesome sides of his immigrant father, single mother, and their degenerate employees.

EXOTIC DEADLY: OR THE MSG PLAY

by Keiko Green

Directed by Jess McLeod

Monday, August 15th | 7 PM

It's 1999, and Ami is an awkward, Japanese American high schooler whose world comes crashing down with a terrible discovery: her family is responsible for manufacturing MSG, the poison spice getting all the kids hooked! Meanwhile, a cool new girl, Exotic Deadly, arrives from Japan, and she's not playing by the rules. In this time-traveling adventure, Ami vows to save the world from MSG and realizes what she's capable of, if she could just get off the ocean floor....

love you long time (already)

by Katie Đỗ

Directed by Cara Hinh

Tuesday, August 16th | 7 PM

love you long time (already) follows a Vietnamese woman's life starting with her death. The story unfolds in the hands of her daughter, who leads us through the arc of their relationship from 1974 to 2018. The two must reckon their relationship and responsibility to each other as they experience assimilation, love, and heartbreak. Losing both culture and faith, they find themselves sifting through the wreckage of their dreams and the aftermath of their survival. A love story.

MY NAME IS BEATRICE

by Ngozi Anyanwu

Directed by Candis C. Jones

Wednesday, August 17th | 7 PM

My Name is Beatrice is a continuation of The Homecoming Queen as we follow Kelechi's return to America, this time with her "daughter" Beatrice. And we'll come to find out healing and reuniting is messy business.

BIOGRAPHIES

CO-PRODUCER

Sanaz Toossi is an Iranian-American playwright from Orange County, California. Her plays include English (co-production Atlantic Theater Company/Roundabout Theatre Company; NYT Critics Pick; Weissberger New Play Award; Lucille Lortel Award; Outer Critics Circle Award; Horton Foote Prize) and Wish You Were Here (Playwrights Horizons; Williamstown/Audible, released 2020; Stavis Award). She is currently under commission at Atlantic Theater Company (Launch commission; Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation grant), Roundabout Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Manhattan Theatre Club, South Coast Repertory, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival (American Revolutions Cycle). She was the 2019 P73 Playwriting Fellow and a recipient of the 2020 Steinberg Playwright Award. MFA: NYU Tisch.

SHORT PLAY & ONE ACT COMMISSIONED WRITERS

BLEU BECKFORD-BURRELL (Playwright) is a first-generation Jamaican-American actor/playwright. Born and raised in New York City, she works for non-profit organizations where she teaches acting, playwriting and directing to teens. Her plays include: P.S.365 (2019 O'Neill Finalist) showcased at EST (Youngblood Workshop Series) and The National Black Theatre (Keep the Soul Alive reading series). Lyons Pride (2020 Burman New Play Award Finalist, 2019 The Kilroy's Honorable Mention, and Yale Drama Series Award Runner-up, 2018 BAPF, Princess Grace Award Finalist) showcased at Playwrights Realm (Ink'd Festival of New Plays) and EST (Bloodwork Reading Series). La Race (2020 Normal Ave Finalist and Theatre503 International Playwright Award, O'Neill, BAPF, 2021 Princess Grace Semi-finalist) and Page73 (Fall 2022 Production). She is a MacDowell Fellow (2022), Page73 Fellow (2021), The Playwrights Realm Fellow (2018), PWC New Voices Fellowship (2018, Finalist), NYTW/2050 Fellowship (2019, Finalist) as well as an I73 playwright (2020), Colt Coeur resident (2021), PWC Core Writer (2020, Finalist), WP Lab (2020, Finalist), Working Farm (2019, Semi-Finalist), etc. She received the 2020 Playwrights Horizons, Jody Falco & Jeffrey Steinman Commission for Emerging Playwrights, 2021 South Coast Repertory, Elizabeth George Emerging Writer Commission and 2022 Keen Company, Keen Teens Commission. M.F.A. Rutgers University. BleuBeckford.com

SHAYAN LOTFI (Playwright) has written some plays, and thankfully still wants to write. He's been fortunate enough that some wonderful institutions have supported and developed his work, including MacDowell, The Working Farm at SPACE on Ryder Farm, Roundabout Theatre, South Coast Repertory, The Lark, Marble House Project, Millay, and Boston Court. He is currently working on a play for the Elizabeth George Emerging Writers Commission, and when he's not writing he works in urban planning.

Roger Q. Mason (Playwright - they/them) was recently touted by The Brooklyn Rail as "quickly becoming one of the most significant playwrights of the decade." Their playwriting has been seen on Broadway at Circle in the Square (Circle Reading Series); Off and Off-Off-Broadway at MCC Theatre with Carnegie Hall, La Mama ETC, New York Theatre Workshop, New Group, The Fire This Time Festival, Dixon Place, American Theatre of Actors, Flea Theatre, and Access Theater; and regionally at McCarter Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Victory Gardens, Chicago Dramatists, Steep Theatre, Serenbe Playhouse, Theatre Rhinoceros, Open Fist Theatre Company, EST/LA, Coeurage Theatre, Rogue Artists Ensemble, Son of Semele, and Skylight Theatre. Roger is an honoree of the Kilroys List; the Chuck Rowland Pioneer Award; the Fire This Time Festival Alumni Spotlight; and the Hollywood Fringe Festival Encore Producers Award. Mason's films have been recognized by the British Film Institute Flare Festival, Lonely Wolf International Film Festival, SCAD Film Festival, Oscar Micheaux Film Festival, AT&T Film Award, Atlanta International Film Festival, Webby Awards, and Telly Awards. They've screened at the British Film Institute Flare Festival, Lonely Wolf International Film Festival, Inside Out Festival (Toronto), SCAD Film Festival, Hollyshorts, Outfest and Outfest Fusion, Bentonville Film Festival, Outshine Film Festival, and the Pan African Film Festival. Mason holds degrees from Princeton University, Middlebury College, and Northwestern University. They are a member of Page 73's Interstate 73 Writers Group and Primary Stages Writing Cohort, an alumnus of The Fire This Time Festival, the co-host of Sister Roger's Gayborhood podcast, and the lead mentor of the Shay Foundation Fellowship and the New Visions Fellowship. Instagram: @rogerq.mason

juliany taveras (they/them/their) (Playwright) is a Dominican-American writer, theatre-maker, & arts educator from Brooklyn, NY. They currently have a commission from Children's Theatre Company, Omaha Theatre Company, and Chicago Children's Theatre to adapt Christine Baldacchino's children's book Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress for the stage. Other plays include Yaelis (2020 Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship Finalist), Desarrollo (Playwrights' Week 2018 at the Lark), The Anatomy of Light (The Kilroys List 2016, 50 Playwrights Project List 2018). Their plays have been developed/staged with Page 73, The Lark, Corkscrew Theater Festival, The Bechdel Group, WOW Café Theatre, Greenhouse Theater Center, and Unbound Theatre Company, among others. They are currently writing an animated film adaptation of Julian Is A Mermaid for Wynchwood Pictures and have been a staff writer for Amazon's With Love. Their poetry has appeared in La Galería Magazine, Reflections on the Burden of Men, and other platforms. juliany is a graduate of Vassar College & the St. Joseph's College Writer's Foundry, & currently works as a teaching artist with NYC youth while continuing to develop work that navigates bodies in diaspora. https://julianytaveras.com/

NJ Agwuna (Director) is a freelance director of stage and screen who is currently devising and directing The Supaupa Kid at Barrington Stage Company. She approaches theatre with curiosity and wonder, believing that theatre can not only heal us, but show us all the possibilities of the world that we inhabit. She has worked on a national and international scale exploring classic text, developing new plays, devising theatrical experiences through myth and spectacle, and investigating new ways to explore trauma and mental illness through theatre. Some of her previous credits include: 7 Minutes by Sefano Mesini (AD, Waterwell & Working Theatre) Clyde's by Lynn Nottage (AD, Helen Hayes), The Magic Flute (Glimmerglass Festival), The Woman's Party by Rinne B. Groff (AD, ClubbedThumb), Polaroid Stories (LIU Post), Till: A Musical (won Best Direction), The Lover by Harold Pinter (DirectorFest 2020), Blanks by Gethsemane Herron-Coward (JAG Fest, Fire This Time Festival), Lysistrata (The New School of Drama), The Tempest (Lenfest), Freedom Train (TWUSA National Tour '18, '19), Endangered! the Eco-Musical (AD), What She Found (won Best Drama at FRIGID). She is a Drama League alum, an associate writer and teaching artist with Tectonic. Directing MFA- Columbia University; SDC- associate www.njagwuna.com

BORNA BARZIN (Director) is a Brooklyn-based director of Iranian heritage from the San Francisco Bay Area. Directing credits include <> (National Queer Theater, Lincoln Center), Pinching Pennies with Penny Marshall (New York Theatre Workshop), The Mad Dog Blues (The Hive), and How I Learned to Drive (Sibiu International Theatre Festival). Borna has worked at theaters such as Lincoln Center, Berkeley Rep, Atlantic Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Huntington Theater, Echo Theater, and The TEAM. Borna is the Associate Casting Director of the National Tour of Oklahoma! as well as a member of the Roundabout Director's Group and the Mercury Store Director's Lab, a former fellow at New York Theater Workshop, and a Colt Coeur Resident Artist. bornabarzin.com

QUALITY CELLULAR

ALEX RIAD (Playwright) is an Egyptian-American writer based in New York City. He's a part of The Lark's Middle Eastern Writers Lab, the Literary Fellow at The Farm Theater, a member of The Actor's Studio Playwright Unit, a former Lila Acheson Wallace American playwriting fellow at The Juilliard School, and is currently under commission at the Atlantic Theater Company via the Judith Champion Launch Commission Program. NY Theatre Credits: The Wild Parrots of Campbell (Cherry Lane Theater), The Floor is Lava (LaMama Experimental Theatre, 2017 Planet Connections Festival Best Play), If You Ever Come by Here (The Tank), and When You Go (The Tank).

Padraic Lillis (Director) is the Founding Artistic Director of The Farm Theater. He directed Alex Riad's The Wild Parrots of Campbell at The Cherry Lane Studio and In Place at Juilliard. Padraic directed the premieres of Adina Taubman's The Road Back at The Chain Theater, Julia Brother's I Was Right Here at the San Francisco Playhouse, Dipti Bramhandkar's American Rookie at Luna-Stage/">Luna Stage, Legrid Stephen's A Perigrine Falls at The Wild Project, and Scott Hudson's Sweet Storm for LAByrinth Theater Company. He was awarded: New York Innovative Theatre Outstanding Director for Lindsay Joy's Rise and Fall of a Teenage Cyberqueen; and NY International Fringe Festival's Overall Excellence in directing for Lee Kaplan's Bully, and Best Short at the Milan International Film Festival for his film Hand Over Hand. He was the Humana Visiting Scholar and Artist in Residence at Centre College. Padraic is the host of The Farm Theater's Bullpen Sessions podcast. He is a member of the LAByrinth Theater Company and a lifelong Yankee fan.

EXOTIC DEADLY: OR THE MSG PLAY

Keiko Green (Playwright) is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and performer, based in Los Angeles and Seattle. Her plays have been developed and/or produced by the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, ACT Theatre, The Old Globe, the Kennedy Center, National New Play Network, Seattle Repertory Theatre, the Playwrights Realm, and Theatre Mu, among others. She is currently staffed on a new TV show for Hulu/20th TV and is developing a Rom Com feature film with the producers of Netflix's To All the Boys I've Loved Before. As an actor, Keiko has performed at the Denver Center of Performing Arts, Seattle Repertory Theatre, ACT Theatre, and the National Asian American Theatre Company, among others. Her plays range from coming-of-age comedies to large-concept horror and everything in between, exploring the unexpected connection between people from different backgrounds, as well as the internal tensions held within our bodies. She recently received her MFA in Playwriting from UC San Diego. Keiko is represented by the Gersh Agency and Anonymous Content.

Jess McLeod (Director) is a director & social justice advocate specializing in risky new work about America. BOLD Resident Director (Woolly Mammoth); Artist-In-Residence (NYCLU); Artistic Associate, Broadway Advocacy Coalition. Resident Director, Hamilton Chicago. Regional credits include Woolly, Steppenwolf, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Goodman, San Diego Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Long Wharf, The Gift, A Red Orchid Theatre. Jess has created operas with community groups at the Lyric, musicals with incarcerated teen Chicagoans through Storycatchers Theatre, and is a Broadway Advocacy Coalition Artistic Associate. Under commission at La Jolla Playhouse and Victory Gardens. MFA, Northwestern. www.jess-mcleod.com | @mcjessmc

love you long time (already)

Katie Đỗ (she/her/hers) (Playwright) is a Vietnamese-American woman with a mouth from New Jersey. She writes to give voice to the Vietnamese-American diaspora and her Vietnamese lineage. Currently, she is a member of the Public's Emerging Writers Group and is a proud alum of the Sống Collective's Việt Writers Lab. TV writing credits include "Partner Track" on Netflix (release date TBD). Cảm ơn má vá bà ngoại.

CARA HINH (she/they) (Director) is an NYC based queer, fat, mixed Viet theatre director & educator originally from Indiana. They rejoice in work that speaks to the complicated and messy intersectionalities of holding a multiplicity of cultures and identities. They are a proud member of the Roundabout Directors Group Cohort 2. Prior, Cara was a 2021 Drama League Hangar Fellow, a Directing Apprentice at Actors Theatre of Louisville, SDC Observer on Hadestown and a Learning Fellow at Baltimore Center Stage. Upcoming: Little Women @ Perseverance Theatre carahinh.com

MY NAME IS BEATRICE

Ngozi Anyanwu (Playwright and Co-Producer) Education: University of California, San Diego (MFA in Acting), Point Park University (BA Theatre Arts). Acting: The Pittsburgh Public Theatre, The City Theatre, Barrington Stage, Philadelphia Theatre Co, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and The Mark Taper Forum. Television credits include starring in the upcoming limited series "Invitation to a Bonfire" on AMC. Playwriting: Seven Deadly Sins (Drama Desk Award) Good Grief, The Homecoming Queen, and Nike or We Don't Need Another Hero. Good Grief (Kilroys List 2016, semi finalist Princess Grace, Humanitas Award) was produced at Center Theatre Group (the Kirk Douglas) in Los Angeles (2017) and Off Broadway at The Vineyard Theatre (2018) which Anyanwu also starred in. NIKE (kilroys list 2017) was workshopped at The New Black Fest in conjunction with The Lark and The Strand Festival in conjunction with A.C.T. and Space on Ryder Farm and New York Stage and Film. The Homecoming Queen (kilroys list 2017, Leah Ryan Finalist) had its world premiere at The Atlantic Theater in 2018 which also had a sold out run. She also recently wrote and starred in her play The Last of the Love Letters at The Atlantic Theater Company (2021). Anyanwu has also received residencies from LCT3, Space on Ryder Farm, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, The New Harmony Project, New York Stage and Film and Page 73. She is also commissioned with NYU, Two Rivers, The Old Globe, Steppenwolf and The Atlantic Theater and is the recipient of the Creative Rebuild New York program, where she will be an artist in Residence with Barbara Ann Teer's National Black Theatre.

Candis C. Jones (Director) Selected credits include School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play (Cincinnati Playhouse), Cullud Wattah (The Public Theater), Detroit '67 (DC Signature Theatre), Black Solo Plays (Willamstown Theatre Festival), Shadow/Land (The Public Theater), 53% Of (The Alliance Theatre), Bitch (Page 73 Productions), Everybody (Tisch School of the Arts), The House of the Negro Insane (Bay Area Playwrights Festival), Pipeline (Detroit Public Theatre), Nike (American Conservatory Theater's New Strands Festival),The Wolves (American Academy of Dramatic Arts), Brother Rabbit (New Black Fest), Name Calling (The Kennedy Center), Morning in America (Primary Stages) and TEMBO! (Zanzibar International Film Festival). Candis is the Associate Director of Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway. Her awards and Fellowships include the 2016 Lilly Award, Women's Project Theater Lab and Drama League Director's Fellowship. Upcoming: Clyde's (Studio Theater), Shadow/Land (The Public Theater) www.candiscjones.com.

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