Long Beach Shakespeare Company's New Works Festival Will Include HOLD ON, LUDLOW MASSACRE & A WIRE IN MIND

The Helen Borgers Theater home of the Long Beach Shakespeare Company 2026 New Works Festival begins this weekend. Produced by LBSC Artistic Director Holly Leveque the festival celebrates the voices of today featuring original plays from emerging and established writers.

This festival is a platform where daring stories, fresh perspectives, and innovative artistry meet the stage for the first time. Each piece carries the potential to spark dialogue, inspire connection, and carve out a lasting place in theatrical history.

Hold On

By: Robert Weibezahl

Directed by Cameron Kauffman

The dates for performances will be: 5/15 8 PM and 5/17 1 PM

As a 25th high school reunion goes on in the gym down the hall, HEATHER WREN wanders into what she thinks is an empty classroom to sneak a smoke. There, she finds GREG ALDERSEN, a math teacher, at work. Heather finds it odd that Greg, a teacher who clearly has also ducked out of the reunion, is working. Greg immediately recognizes Heather, who is a minor rock star, returning to her hometown for the first time. At first, she does not recognize him at her former friend and confidante from high school. As the action of the play unfolds through the night, the complicated past relationship between these two damaged characters comes to light, and long kept secrets and repressed truths begin to surface. Beneath the sharp- tongued humor of these erstwhile friends lies a poignant sense of emotional need and unfulfilled destiny.

The cast includes Greg Aldersen and Heather Wren.

LUDLOW MASSACRE

By: Darren Andrew Nash

Directed by Benjamin Pohlmeier

The dates for performances will be: 5/16 8 PM and 5/17 4 PM

A tenacious reporter imbeds with the striking miners and becomes more and involved in a dangerous and bloody clash with powerful entities including one of the riches men in the world- John D. Rockefeller Jr.

The cast includes Luca Nicoletti as Emma; Leonardo Lerma as Louis and the Rockefeller Lawyer; Justin Valine as Charles and Commissioner Weinstock; Stacey Xia as Franny, the Pregnant Wife, the Red Cross Worker, and Reporter 3; Vida So as Maggie and Reporter 2; Sebastian Adame as the Lieutenant and Miner 2; Jerome Wallace as Steve and Nathaniel Everhardt; Anne Gundry as Mother Jones, Pearl, and the Narrator; Alan Bornemann as Will, the Foreman, the Sergeant, and Chairman Walsh; Kieran Ragland as the Chief Editor, Renado, the Guard, Soldier 2, and John D. Rockefeller Jr.; and Brandon Silva as the Foreign Miner, Doc Corwin, Lanza, Juan, Miner 1, Soldier 1, and Reporter 1.

A Wire In Mind

By Michael J.M. Canas

Directed by Rose Kim

The dates of the show will be on 5/16 2 PM and 5/17 8 PM

The Bacall family take care of their patriarch of the house, a once lauded surgeon now in the stages of Alzheimer. Their daughter, Alexis, uses a home security app which records the various activities that occur throughout the house. Alexis begins altering the app in order to preserve her Father's memories, which slowly convince her to implant false memories to build an idealized version of her father.

The cast includes Holly Leveque as Alexis Bacall, Alan Bornemann as Andrew Bacall, Paola Esteras as Wendell Bacall, and James Dean as Homer.

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