OC-centric New Play Festival Opens August 18

Orange County theatre lovers know where to go to find exciting new plays - they head to OC-centric: Orange County's New Play Festival. Named OC's "Best New Play Festival" in 2015 by the OC WEEKLY, OC-centric has become a destination event with tickets selling months in advance.

From light comedy to intense drama, the festival presents a tantalizing lineup of new work in its sixth season, opening August 18 on the campus of Chapman University. All the playwrights either live in or hail from Orange County. Actors and directors from across the Southland join Chapman University theatre students in bringing these scripts to life.

Full-Length Plays

Love All by Lojo Simon - After 14 years of marriage, a husband and father reveals a secret: he is not who his family thinks he is. In a story of myth and myth-making, inquiry and deception intertwine with memory and forgetting as a family tries to stitch itself together after the life they thought they knew comes unraveled. Directed by Travis Donnelly. Featuriing Jennifer Novak Chun, Mike Martin & Alexander Walters.

Performances: August 18-19 @ 8pm, August 27 @ 2pm, August 28 @ 7pm

Tix: (714) 902-5716 or http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2569010

Night Moths on the Wing by Kimberly Kalaja - Civilization has broKen Down; everything is scarce, thousands have disappeared, and rebel factions fight the national army. When rebel General Victor Maylor is arrested and secretly delivered to an unofficial prison camp, he expects to be executed...but chief interrogator Michael Shaw does not want him dead--not yet. Shaw wants information and will do whatever he needs to get it. But while the men relentlessly engage in a battle of wills, are they blind to a more elusive enemy that could destroy them both? Directed by Michael Serna. Featuring ?? Jazi Davis, Connor Dugard, David Carl Golbeck, John J. Pistone & Jeff Rolle, Jr.

Performances: August 20 @ 8pm, August 21 @ 2pm, August 25-26 @ 8pm

Tix: (714) 902-5716 or http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2569075

One-Acts (both performed in the same program

Kill a Better Mousetrap by Scott K. Ratner - Miles Merbinoe has a reason - in his own mind, at least - to shut down the world's longest-running play, Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap. And, as Christie was the "Queen of Crime," what more fitting way to do this than... murder? Merbinoe's frustrations, wild theories, and ruminations on the contrariness of success set the stage for hilarity in this comedy. Directed by Tamiko Washington. Featuring Sean Burgos, Caleb Jenkins, KC Marie Pandell & Lena Romano.

Left Behind, Waiting by Joshua David Vega - A socially awkward little boy named Davey finds a pair of friends in Melina and John, the young newlyweds next door. One day, they aren't there anymore. Fifteen years later, twenty-something David meets Melina again; she now knows the feeling of being abandoned herself. What they don't know is what will happen between them next. Directed by Clayton Guiltner. Featuring Jason Brewer, Andrew Gandy, Jeremy Howard and Alexandra Lovelace.

Performance times for both one-acts: August 20 @ 2pm, August 21 @ 7pm, August 27 @ 8pm, August 28 @ 2pm

Tix: (714) 902-5716 or http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2569041

Visit oc-centric.com in the coming weeks for playwright interviews, director and cast biographies and other cool stuff.

OC-centric is produced by Actors Circle Ensemble and Eric Eberwein and sponsored by the Department of Theatre and Dance at Chapman University.