Creative Cauldron Stage Will Host “Bold New Voices” Festival in 2026

Creative Cauldron Stage has announced the launch of its “Bold New Voices” Festival, running from April 11th through May 9th, 2026.  The festival will offer audiences a unique opportunity to participate in the artistic process. Attendees will experience professionally staged readings of new plays and musicals, providing feedback that will help the Bold New Voices Selection Committee choose the final offering for Creative Cauldron's 2026-27 mainstage season.

“Our goal is to create a safe, inclusive space for development,” says Founding Artistic Director Laura Connors Hull, who leads the committee alongside board members Carol Lee Campbell and Krista Grimmett-Adams. “We are interested in fostering premieres and giving new life to works written by women that benefit from further development. By shining a light on these talented women writers, we take a small step toward gender equality in our industry.”

2026 FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

All performances take place on Saturdays at 2:00 PM and 7:30 PM.

• April 11: The C Word Written by Sarah Lina Sparks | Directed by Sally Imbriano
• April 18: Live From My Dad's Couch Written by Gaelyn D. Smith | Directed by A. Lorraine Robinson
• April 25: His Girl Friday Book by Danielle Moore | Music & Lyrics by Zachary Sloan and Danielle Moore | Directed by Matt Conner
• May 9: Policarpa: Apocalypse Sur Amerikka Written by Diana Burbano | Directed by Elena Velasco

ABOUT THE SELECTIONS AND WRITERS

The C Word

Written by Sarah Lina Sparks | Directed by Sally Imbriano

The C Word follows the story of five girls waiting for a job interview to become associate curator at a museum. While waiting for the interview, they are unexpectedly trapped by the hysterical oracle (Hystoracle). In order to escape, they must choose someone to sacrifice as tribute to the C-monster.

Sarah Lina Sparks (she/her) is a proud Filipina playwright and recent UCLA graduate based out of Southern California. Her writing is largely inspired by her Filipino heritage, women, and the unique experience of coming of age in the new millennium. Her plays have been produced internationally by the Los Angeles Theatre Initiative, Ghostlight Theater Ensemble, and Out of the Blue Theater Company. She has been recognized by the International Thespian Festival, the Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Competition, Third Culture Theater (Nexus Festival), and Southern California Youth Playwrights. Her work has been published by Concord Theatricals and Dramatics Magazine and she is currently working on an exciting new commission in partnership with UCLA Health and LA Women's Health.

Live From My Dad's Couch

Written by Gaelyn D. Smith | Directed by A. Lorraine Robinson

Live from My Dad's Couch is part stand-up comedy, part bad shower singing, coming together in a cabaret-style performance about the failure of the promises made to Gen-Z by those who came before us in front of a live studio audience (you). From the set (her father's living room) Gaelyn shares semi-autobiographical, very political, funny stories and observations of what it's like to become an adult when the world (seems) to be falling apart.

Gaelyn D. Smith is an actor, writer, director, teaching artist, and digital content creator born and raised in Washington, DC, whose work seeks to expand possibilities and add nuance to the representation of the Black experience. She received her BFA in Acting from Syracuse University, earning the Marcia Mohr Award for Excellence in Dramatic Acting. She also received her M.A. in Television, Radio, and Film from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, where she won the Gordon J. Alderman Award for Excellence in Television, Radio, and Film for her half-hour dramedy Chasing Viral. The script was a finalist for the One-Eyed Rabbit Black Screenwriter's Grant (2021) and a quarterfinalist in the Shore Scripts TV Pilot Contest (2021).

His Girl Friday

Book by Danielle Moore | Music & Lyrics by Zachary Sloan and Danielle Moore | Directed by Matt Conner

His Girl Friday is a new musical comedy based on the classic Cary Grant / Rosalind Russell film of the same name (named to AFI's list of the 100 Greatest American Comedies). The film came properly into the adaptable public domain in 2024 when its source material, The Front Page, also became public domain. Featuring a big band score, the piece is a love letter to screwball comedies and the importance of the fourth estate in combating corruption.

Danielle E. Moore (she/her) is a writer, composer, and producer. Danielle's work Audrey: The New Musical, was a Regional “Bold New Works” premiere at Creative Cauldron in 2023. She is a member of the Tony-honored BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop. Her musical Ink & Paint, starring Sierra Boggess and Gizel Jiménez, and co-written with Marjorie Duffield (Netflix's Over the Moon), received a reading at Roundabout Theatre Company's Underground space in January 2026, and a workshop of the piece was recently produced by Roundabout Leader for NewWorks Jeanne Hagerty and former DreamWorks Oriental Chief Creative Officer and Oscar-nominated producer Peilin Chou as a selection of the inaugural Newport New Works Festival.

Policarpa: Apocalypse Sur Amerikka

Written by Diana Burbano | Directed by Elena Velasco

In the near future, an inexplicable plague infests La Gran Colombia. Ingrid Bolivar--the brilliant, mad ex-wife of Colombia's leader--is the only one who knows that the plague is carried by young women of the streets, whom she adopts and uses as weapons against the government. Policarpa, a girl with magical gifts, is supposed to be Ingrid's secret apocalyptic weapon. But when Policarpa falls in love with a top government official, she resists becoming an instrument of destruction and instead seeks to become a savior through sacrifice.

Policarpa has been developed at The Drama League's Rough Draft series, Theatricum Botanicum Seedlings, Oregon Shakespeare Festival BLACK SWAN Lab Latinx Play Project, and Milagro Theatre's Ingenio play reading series. It received an Honorable Mention for the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award. It received an Honorable Mention, Association for Theatre in Higher Education's 2017 Jane Chambers Playwriting Award and was a semi-finalist for the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Festival 2018 and a finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Foundation Festival 2018.

Diana Burbano was named as part of the Los Angeles Times' “La Vanguardia” 2022. She is a Colombian immigrant, a playwright, an Equity actor, and a teaching artist. Diana's play Ghosts of Bogotá premiered at Alter Theatre in 2020 just before the pandemic shut down. Ghosts was produced at The Actors Theatre of Charlotte in 2022. Sapience opened at Moxie Theatre in San Diego in 2022. Fabulous Monsters, a Latinx Punk Rock play premiered at The Public Theatre of San Antonio, featuring the music of FEA in 2023. She was in the Geffen's Writers Lab in 20-21 and has commissions with Center Theatre Group, Artists Repertory Theatre, Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble, HERO Theatre, and Livermore Shakespeare Festival. Residencies include Marfa Live Arts, Milagro Ingenio, Workshop Theatre Lab at Echo Theatre, and the Mercury Company for Artists Repertory.