FIM Flint Repertory Theatre's New Works Festival Premieres Readings Of Four New Plays

FIM Flint Repertory Theatre presents its 2023 New Works Festival April 28-30. The three-day event features staged readings of new plays. Audience members get to experience these works before anyone else and meet the artists working to bring the future of American theatre to life.

Tickets are $10 each or $25 for a festival pass to attend all four readings. Festival passes are $10 for college students with a valid college I.D.

"This year's festival includes innovative, risk taking new work by some of the country's most compelling contemporary playwrights" says Flint Rep Producing Artistic Director Michael Lluberes. "These plays are funny, scary and adventurous and play with form in wild and surprising new ways."

The festival begins with Down Stair's Neighbor (Or Seven Day Play) by Beth Henley on Friday, April 28, at 7 p.m. Co-directed by Henley and Carolyn Braver, the play tells the story of a waning playwright trying to write a play in seven days. Henley's plays include Crimes of the Heart (Pulitzer Prize in Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best American Play), The Wake of Jamey Foster, The Miss Firecracker Contest and many others.

A Driving Beat by Jordan Ramirez Puckett takes the stage on Saturday, April 29, at 2 p.m. Directed by Flint's Janet Haley, this play follows Mateo, a 14-year-old boy with brown skin, and Diane, his white adoptive mother, as they take a road trip from their home in Ohio to his birthplace in San Diego. Throughout the journey, they are forced to reconcile their differing identities and what it means to be a family.

On April 30, at 7 p.m., Younger by Kelundra Smith, directed by John Sloan III, is an imagined prequel to Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. Lena and Walter, Sr. must find a way to hold onto their dreams and each other after life in the North is not as they thought it would be.

Finally, Sunday, April 30, at 2 p.m. is Funny, Like Haha (Or a Play About a Rape Joke) by Katherine Gwynn, directed by Shelby R. Seeley. The play is a dark comedy about internalized misogyny, female friendship, white feminism, who gets to be heard and who gets to be a joke.

Cast for the readings include Christopher Bannow, Hallie Bee Bard, Nikyla Boxley, Carolyn Braver, Jazmine Kuyayki Broe, Claro de los Reyes, Henrí Franklin, Bryana Hall, Lily Harris, Kenn Hopkins Jr., Amanda Kuo, Janai Lashon, Marie Muhammad, Kevin O'Callaghan, Meredith Parker, Madelyn Porter and Rico Bruce Wade.

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