City Lights Launches LIGHTS UP! A Three-Day Festival of New Plays

Mark your calendars: City Lights is planning a new festival of fresh theater for April 28-30, 2017. "Lights Up! Three Days of New Plays" will introduce theatergoers to exciting new voices in the Bay Area playwriting scene, presenting full-length and one-act plays, and a series of shorts.

Audiences will have the chance to help shape new works, offering feedback to the writers in discussions after the readings. City Lights, now in its 34th season, has a long commitment to new works and emerging playwrights. For many years, the company has presented individual readings throughout the season. Now City Lights is trying something new: an event that brings all this creative energy together in one weekend.

"I love the excitement that happens in a festival atmosphere," said Rachel Bakker, a City Lights board member who will head "Lights Up!" and has run the new-works program for years. "All our playwrights and actors will get to come together to learn from each other."

Full-length plays set for readings are: Waiting for Next by Jeffrey Lo, Quick Quick Slow by Lynne Kaufman, and Candelabrum by Max Tachis. (Tachis is also an actor often seen on the City Lights stage; recent acting credits include The Elephant Man, Handle With Care and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.)

The festival will also include the one-act play Confession by Barry Slater, as well as a series of shorts: Hatikvah and Vichy's Garden, both by Shayna Billings; Cooley's Reel and Gertrude, both by Madeline Lowe Puccioni; and B4 U Know It and How You Play the Game, both by John Levine. Bakker and her team are currently choosing the festival's actors. Though these are script-in-hand readings, audiences can expect dynamic events rather than performances rooted behind music stands.

"Half the time, I forget our actors are holding scripts," Bakker said. Audiences may also get a first glimpse of a big show, as the new plays always have the possibility for a future at City Lights. Jeffrey Lo's Dealing Dreams, about 20-somethings in Silicon Valley, started out as a reading and then returned to City Lights this year as a more fleshed-out developmental production. "Lights Up!" readings will be held on the evenings of April 28 and 29 and on the afternoons of April 29 and 30. The full inaugural lineup and schedule will be announced by the beginning of April, along with play synopses.

For more about City Lights' new-works program, go to bit.ly/lightsupcitylights.

About City Lights: Since 1982, the nonprofit City Lights Theater Company has been inspiring and challenging audiences with an exciting mix of plays and musicals, many new works. The company's downtown San Jose theater is a bustling, intimate 100-seat space that attracts artists, educators, students and playgoers alike. Committed to presenting thought-provoking plays that speak strongly to audiences, the company also develops new plays, with some scripts joining a regular season. Other special events include appearances by local musicians in the Lights & Music concert series. In addition, City Lights is widely regarded as a nurturing space in which up-and-coming actors, directors, designers, and technicians can develop their skills alongside top-notch professionals. Executive Artistic Director Lisa Mallette has led the company since 2001.

Since then, City Lights has been recognized not only for expanding its artistic reach and achievement, but also for its sound fiscal management; 2015- 2016 marked the company's 13th consecutive season in the black. City Lights' mainstage 2016-17 season continues in January with the darkly comic corporate thriller Ideation by Bay Area playwright Aaron Loeb. It's followed by a world-premiere, high-tech adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, by Kit Wilder, who also co-authored the 2014 hit Truce: A Christmas Wish from the Great War. The witty Rapture, Blister, Burn by Gina Gionfriddo and the Goth-rock musical Lizzie round out the season. Details: cltc.org.