The Public Theater Reveals Annual Judith Champion New Work Series Lineup
The readings will take place in June in LuEsther Hall.
The Public Theater has announced the second Judith Champion New Work Series, a collection of readings in which select playwrights present full-length new plays currently in development at The Public. The readings will take place in June in LuEsther Hall.
Judith Champion, an architect, violinist, and dedicated supporter of the theater, made major gifts to six New York nonprofit theater companies in the final year of her life to help foster the production of original plays. As Champion made these gifts, she said: “Support what is most important to you. One thing that is important to me is to nurture playwrighting so that theater flourishes for future generations.”
Director of New Work Development Amrita Ramanan shares: "The series is a way in which we champion writers in the early stages of development of their new work. I am absolutely thrilled that Jasmine Sharma, Seayoung Yim, Sanjit De Silva, and Karina Billini agreed to join us. Their plays speak to what I love best about the theater, encompassing rich and expansive stories, unforgettable characters, vibrant humor, and imaginative explorations of the deep truths that sit at the intersection of humanity, memory, and possibility. I am forever grateful to Mel Litoff and his and Judith's family for their generous support of the Judith Champion New Work Series and so many new work development programs across New York City. In these times of financial scarcity in the performing arts, they keep new work development not only alive, but abundant."
2026 Judith Champion New Work Series:
PEACHY: a sorta chekhovian traumedy
Written by Jasmine Sharma
Directed by Adrian Alea
Monday, June 1, 3:30pm & 7:30pm
In 2022, the owner of a Los Angeles-based, family-run Indi-Mex restaurant has the opportunity to franchise. In 1962, a Mexican woman and Punjabi peach farmer enter a “Mexidu” marriage in order to circumvent California’s stringent miscegenation laws. Peachy is a sorta chekhovian traumedy about cooking with love...and, family.
FOODS OF THE FORGOTTEN WAR
Written by Seayoung Yim
Directed by Chris Yejin
Dramaturgy by Amrita Ramanan
Tuesday, June 9, 3:30pm & 7:30pm
Plagued by a diasporic desire to taste her ancestral doenjang, Wensu travels through a hermit kingdom’s history and gastronomy in the hopes of recovering an authentic, pungent flavor that's been sealed and encrypted by modernity. Seen through the eyes of Korean women over time, Foods of the Forgotten War is an incomplete survey of how war and colonialism change how we flavor, preserve, and package food and cultural memory.
FOODS OF THE FORGOTTEN WAR is commissioned with Center Theater Group through generous support from the Toulmin Foundation.
THE DAY THE RIOTS BEGAN
Written by Sanjit De Silva
Directed by Mei Ann Teo
Dramaturgy by Amrita Ramanan
Monday, June 15, 3:30pm & 7:30pm
Black July, 1983. It was the day Sanjit's life changed forever. But for the life of him, he can't remember why. In a Zoom call with his parents, memories are rehashed, renewed, and rediscovered, leading to a startling revelation. Told through a captivating solo performance, The Day the Riots Began is a story about memory, migration, and the trauma we carry with us.
BROOKLYN BOYS CAN’T FLOAT
Written by Karina Billini
Directed by Nicky Maggio
Monday, June 22, 3:30pm & 7:30pm
It’s Charlie’s 35th birthday and nothing seems to be going right in his life: the pandemic, his messed-up back, and his deferred dreams of joining the I.T. team with his childhood buddies, Donnie and Solomon. As he and his boys embark on a revelrous birthday trip to Punta Cana, things start to go awry when 'strapped-for-cash' Solomon secretly invites the work pariah, ‘soon-to-be Head of I.T.’ Gavin, to join the fun. Brooklyn Boys Can’t Float is a riotous interrogation of male fragility, friendship, and the mental cost men pay when they don’t allow each other to feel.
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