The Old Globe to Present the 11th Annual Powers New Voices Festival Featuring 10 New Plays

The Old Globe will present the 11th annual Powers New Voices Festival, a three-day event of readings of 10 new American plays by emerging and award-winning playwrights writing for the American theatre today, including new works by San Diegans. The free festival opens on January 12, 2024 and closes on January 14 in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Globe’s Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. 

Celebrating Community Voices, an evening of short works created by San Diego playwrights through the Globe’s arts engagement programs Community Voices and coLAB, is scheduled on January 12, 2024. The evening will feature readings of six 10-minute plays by local artists MG Green, Marie Vasari Hislop, Eliza Hugee, Ms. JHawk, Brian T. Josten, and Ric Scales. The first of four full-length new American play readings continues on January 13 with Emerson Loses Her “Miand” by Laura Winters, followed by Globe-commissioned Pleasant by Inda Craig-Galván, The Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latine Vote by Bernardo Cubría, and Globe-commissioned Empty Ride by Keiko Green.

“The Powers New Voices Festival enters its second decade as one of the most compelling and unique celebrations of American playwriting,” said Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. “For 10 years the Globe’s investment in new work for the American stage through commissions, workshops, and productions has resulted in major contributions to the national repertoire. Year 11 once again brings brilliant writers to San Diego, telling urgent and exciting stories that inject new energy into our art form. The plays in this year’s Festival cover a huge range of subjects, genres, styles, and cultures. They are fresh, surprising, and revelatory. I am delighted to share this rich work with our audiences. I’m so glad to express gratitude to Danielle Mages Amato, the Globe’s Director of New Plays and Dramaturgy, for her visionary leadership, and to the generous philanthropists who give our Festival its name, Paula and Brian Powers.”

POWERS NEW VOICES FESTIVAL SCHEDULE:

FESTIVAL SERIES OF NEW AMERICAN PLAY READINGS

SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 2024

4:00 p.m.
Emerson Loses Her “Miand”
By Laura Winters

Emerson Greenblatt just got engaged! And you’re invited to join her and her five friends as they complete a sacred rite of bridal party passage: a beer trolley tour through Nashville. The memories are flowing. The rosé is flowing. The debate over every single aspect of this interfaith wedding is, unfortunately, also flowing. Emerson Loses Her “Miand” is a nonstop comedic send up of the absurdity of bridesmaid culture. Cheers! 

SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 2024

7:30 p.m.
Globe-commissioned
Pleasant
By Inda Craig-Galván

Mary Ellen Pleasant was a 19th-century abolitionist, an entrepreneur, a real estate tycoon, and the first African American millionaire... and you’ve probably never heard of her. Pleasant uses contemporary music, humor, and unconventional storytelling to explore the life of this self-described “capitalist by profession” who used her role as a humble domestic worker to cloak her badassery. Scandals, rumors, and one angry Karen threatened to bury her legacy, but Pleasant seeks to unearth her invaluable and lasting accomplishments.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 14, 2024

4:00 p.m.
The Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latine Vote
By Bernardo Cubría

University professor Paola Aguilar desperately needs money for... well, she’ll tell you. So when thePolitical Party offers her a substantial paycheck to help them understand the Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latine vote, she reluctantly takes the job. Can she help these political strategists understand all of the nuances of her community to save the election? Or will her own journey ultimately be more important than who controls the White House?

SUNDAY, JANUARY 14, 2024

7:30 p.m.
Globe-commissioned
Empty Ride
By Keiko Green

Kisa, a Japanese painter in Paris, returns to her small hometown of Ishinomaki, taking over her father’s taxi cab as he grows increasingly ill. Ishinomaki was left devastated after the 2011 tsunami, which took Kisa’s mom in addition to over 3,000 other locals in the sleepy, coastal town full of fascinating characters. In this funny, tragically warm, supernatural story of those left behind, Kisa navigates finding her place in the world by rediscovering where she comes from, and where she’s been.

CELEBRATING COMMUNITY VOICES

FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 2024

7:30 p.m.
An evening of six 10-minutes plays

Love Song for Pru
By Marie Vasari Hislop

Pru, an eccentric aspiring social media influencer, tries to craft the perfect series of posts to impress her boyfriend’s rich family—before they realize she might be a complete fraud. 

True School
By Ric Scales

Two fundamentally different rappers—one young and trending, the other a legend on his way out—must find a way to collaborate on a once-in-a-lifetime project without destroying their careers… or each other. 

Take Care
By Eliza Hugee

Anna and her new husband try everything they can think of to get his ex-fiancée Gladys to finally move out of their house. But her drinking, unpredictability, stubbornness, and unexpected condition make her both the rock and the hard place. 

Spectrum
By MG Green

To survive the big road trip to meet their partner’s parents, Basil, a trans, gender non-conforming, queer person must learn to bring all that they are into a new relationship where they are not exactly upfront with their partner about all that is truly at stake. 

Proper Provider
By Brian T. Josten

Set right after World War II, culture, dark history, and generations clash when an American father demands that his young daughter spend less time at the German neighbor’s house, the only place that gives her solace after her brother’s tragic death. 

Mirror
By Ms. JHawk

A person fractured from the inside out must fight pieces of herself to find her way home and become whole again.

The 11th annual Powers New Voices Festival will begin January 12, 2024 and conclude on January 14, 2024. The Festival will take place in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Globe’s Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Tickets to all festival readings require reservations and are free. Reservations for Globe subscribers and donors are available beginning Friday, December 15, 2023 at 12:00 noon. Subject to availability, reservations for the general public will be available beginning Thursday, January 4, 2024 at 12:00 noon. Tickets can be reserved by calling the Ticket Services Department at (619) 234-5623. A line for standby seating will form 30 minutes before each performance of the Powers New Voices Festival. Based on ticket-holder attendance, those standing in the standby line may be seated. Seating is based on seat availability and is not guaranteed. Latecomers with tickets are also not guaranteed admittance. For more information visit www.TheOldGlobe.org. 

The Tony Award–winning The Old Globe is one of the country’s leading professional nonprofit regional theatres. Now in its 89th year, the Globe is San Diego’s flagship performing arts institution, and it serves a vibrant community with theatre as a public good. Under the leadership of Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein and the Audrey S. Geisel Managing Director Timothy J. Shields, The Old Globe produces a year-round season of 16 productions of classic, contemporary, and new works on its three Balboa Park stages, including its internationally renowned Shakespeare Festival. More than 250,000 people annually attend Globe productions and participate in the theatre’s artistic and arts engagement programs. Its nationally prominent Arts Engagement Department provides an array of participatory programs that make theatre matter to more people in neighborhoods throughout the region. Humanities programs at the Globe and around the city broaden the community’s understanding of theatre art in all its forms. The Globe also boasts a range of new play development programs with professional and community-based writers, as well as the renowned The Old Globe and University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program. Numerous world premieres—such as 2014 Tony Award winner for Best Musical A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Bright Star, The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas! —have been developed at The Old Globe and have gone on to highly successful runs on Broadway and at regional theatres across the country.

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