New Works Festival Begins This Weekend At The Long Beach Shakespeare Company
From poetic remix to pitch-black comedy, the New Works Festival is a celebration of daring storytelling and theatrical invention.
The Long Beach Shakespeare Company’s New Works Festival will return to the Helen Borgers Theatre this weekend with a bold lineup of fresh voices and theatrical surprises.
Kicking things off is Speak I Will, a radical reimagining of the Bard’s canon that blends 32 of Shakespeare’s plays, four sonnets, and even the legendary lost play Cardenio into a fever dream of high drama and high fashion. Iconic characters like Lady Macbeth, Henry V, Beatrice, and King Lear collide in a mashup that’s part literary remix, part renaissance rave. Directed with style and swagger, Speak I Will fuses classical language with contemporary urgency—Shakespeare for the Spotify generation.
On Saturday afternoon, the tone turns urgent and emotional with The Lives to Come, a gripping new drama set against the backdrop of a corrupt pharmaceutical empire. When two young lovers discover they’re the key to a life-saving treatment, they’re forced to navigate corporate greed, personal sacrifice, and the thin line between science and survival. With shades of Romeo and Juliet and the high-stakes maneuvering of Succession, this timely piece dives deep into the ethics of medicine and the price of love.
Saturday evening delivers a dynamic dark-comedy double bill: Death Takes a Vacation and The Apollo Waltz.
In Death Takes a Vacation, the Grim Reaper decides to take some much-needed PTO—by crashing with a suburban couple. As Death gets cozy on the couch, boundaries blur and hilarity ensues in a comedy that’s equal parts absurdist and eerily relatable.
Then comes The Apollo Waltz, a sharply observed psychological chamber piece centering on a famous writer, his acid-tongued daughter, and his much younger second wife. Tensions simmer and secrets unravel in a battle of wit and wounds, evoking echoes of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with a noir twist.
Performances take place at the Helen Borgers Theatre (4250 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach, CA). Tickets are $25, with $15 student pricing available. Seating is limited—advance purchases are strongly encouraged at LBShakespeare.org.
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Much Ado About Nothing McCadden Place Theatre (8/07-8/16) |
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6 Out of 10 Theatre 68 (8/20-8/20) |
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After the Blast The Broadwater Second Stage (8/05-8/13) |
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Catch Me If You Can Colony Theatre (9/17-10/18) |
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Emily Skinner: In Concert Feinstein's at the Nikko (8/14-8/15) |
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Gershwin and the Golden Age Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts (The Soraya) (10/11-10/11) |
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John Lloyd Young Feinstein's at the Nikko (8/21-8/22) |
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Love, Loss and What I Wore Sawyer's Playhouse (8/08-8/30) |
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Our Man in Santiago by Mark Wilding Odyssey Theatre Ensemble (9/10-9/20) |
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The Family Album La Jolla Playhouse (7/17-8/23) |