Moving Arts Presents 8th Annual MADlab's First Look Reading Series This Weekend

This year for MADlab, the Moving Arts New Play Development Program, local playwrights
were asked to submit their idea for the Los Angeles play they wanted to write - now.
After reading through many intriguing responses from an abundance of local talent, five playwrights were chosen to make up the MADlab 2021 Cohort: Peppur Chambers, Sarah Cho, Julianne Jigour, Sophie Brion Neely, and Matthew Paul Olmos.

For nine months, the MADlab team at Moving Arts has worked with these
playwrights to help them create and curate a new play with the support and insight of
actors, directors, respondents, and their fellow playwrights. Now Moving Arts is proud to
present the Eighth Annual First Look Reading Series to a vital component of the new
play making process: the audience. Over this weekend they will present these five very
different, engaging, challenging, and bold new plays. The first look series schedule is below:

Your Driver is Here

Saturday, October 9, 2021, 12:00 PM PT

Playwright: Julianne Jigour

Director: Gabrieal Griego

With: Jenny Soo, Alina Phelan, Laura Buckles, Karen Huie, Feodor Chin, Tim Fannon

After a traumatic event throws her off course, a lost young actor abandons New York dreams to navigate the sprawling streets of LA in search of her estranged, starry-eyed mother.

F.K.A. Meridian

Saturday, October 9, 2021, 3:00 PM PT

Playwright: Peppur Chambers

Director: Bernadette Speakes

With: Wendy Elizabeth Abraham, Freddy Ramsey Jr., Geri-Nikole Love, Aries Sanders, ReSheda D. Terry, Marlow Wyatt, William L. Warren

Meridian, a young black woman on the edge, drowns in her desire to be validated by her art. Despite the love and support of her beau, she succumbs to dancing demons and the complicated simplicity of letting go.

Stains

Saturday, October 9, 2021, 6:00 PM PT

Playwright: Sarah Cho

Director: Jully Lee

With: Jessica Ko, Janet Song, Jenapher Zheng, Caitlin Crawley

An impoverished Korean-American teenager struggles through her first period, with the help of an imaginary friend... who happens to resemble a wisecracking witch from a popular '90s sitcom.

a home what howls (or the house what was ravine)

Sunday, October 10, 2021, 12:00 PM PT

Playwright: Matthew Pail Olmos

Director: Rose Portillo

With: Cristina Frías, Peter Mendoza, Natalie Camunas, Peter Howard, Rose Portillo, Chuma Gault

After The Vargas Family is displaced from their home, the parents try to live off the land, but the fear of the outside is like a never ending nightmare. Meanwhile, their daughter attempts to fight their fight legally, against the gears of progress.

Los Pobladores

Sunday, October 10, 2021, 3:00 PM PT

Playwright: Sophie Brion Neely

Director: Justin Huen

With: Alexis Camins, Anne Yatco, Luis Kelly-Duarte, Keyla Monterroso Mejia, Oscar Alberto Dominguez, Juan Parada, Blanca Isabella, Sabina Zúñiga Varela

After the worst cruise of 1781, nine hundred miles of trekking through the desert, and street-taco-level food poisoning, an awkward country boy from the Philippines must overcome one last hurdle: his first-ever house party in the not-yet-city of Los Angeles.

Each play will be presented just once over the weekend during the live-streamed event. All readings are presented live online and free of charge as a service to the community, but advance reservations will be required at the
Moving Arts website.

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