29th Annual Ashland New Plays Festival Is Virtual Live And On Demand

Ashland New Plays Festival's 29th annual flagship Fall Festival features four new plays by Thomas Brandon, TyLie Shider, Meghan Brown, and Andrew Lee Creech. This year the festival takes place virtually with livestream readings and talkbacks October 21 through 24 at 6 pm PT each day, with an encore week of on-demand presentations available from October 26 through 31.

"Encountering four new plays in so short a time is always so exciting," says director Holly L. Derr, "and I get to work with such amazing playwrights and actors at ANPF."

With a variety of stories and themes, each play will take audiences on a unique journey. The journeys will be brought to life by experienced directors and talented actors, with credits ranging from Oregon Shakespeare Festival to Broadway, Netflix and Hollywood.

On Thursday, October 21, Oregon Shakespeare Festival actors Amy Kim Waschke and Moses Villarama will play married couple Kelly and Roan on a picnic that's not what it seems in Pocket Universe by Thomas Brandon, with stage directions read by Danya Torp-Pereda. Freelance director Rhonda Kohl, with credits including The Center Theatre Group, Pasadena Playhouse, and The Hollywood Bowl, is set to direct this dramatic mystery, which follows the couple as troubling gaps in Kelly's memory lead to a dark discovery.

"Having worked on the development of this play for a number of years," says Kohl, "I'm struck by how much more deeply it resonates after the last 18 months that the world has collectively gone through. Grief is a universal language, and this play explores that common experience through an uncommon lens. I'm excited to see it connect with today's audiences on the digital stage."

On Friday, October 22, TyLie Shider's Certain Aspects of Conflict in the Negro Family, will be directed by Martine Kei Green-Rogers, who is currently the interim dean of the Division of Liberal Arts at University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

The reading will feature Michele Mais and Tyrone Wilson, longtime OSF company members, who will play Peach and Clif, parents who moved their family to Plainfield, Jersey, for the promise of a better future. Set in the long, hot summer of 1967, civil unrest and riots erupt in their community and the family contemplates a return to the South. Broadway actor Doron JéPaul Mitchell plays their son Junior and LA-based actor Safiya Harris plays family friend and love interest Ruth. Stage directions will be read by Cameron Davis.

"I wrote the first draft(s) of the play the summer of 2019 in Whittier, Minneapolis," says Shider. "Little did I know, the incidents in the play would be echoed in my neighborhood the following summer."

On Saturday, October 23, Meghan Brown's What Happened While Hero Was Dead features film actor and Carnegie Mellon theatre student Isabella Briggs, OSF actor Christiana Clark, and Southern Oregon University theatre alumna Emily Serdahl as Hero, Beatrice, and Margaret. They'll share the virtual stage in this romp of self-discovery and love with Broadway actor Zach Appelman, OSF actor Rafael Untalan, Andrés Rodriguez, and Galen Molk, with stage directions read by Nina Pamintuan. Director Holly L. Derr says about the play:

"As a director who does a lot of Shakespeare and Shakespearean adaptations, I can't wait to dig into Meghan Brown's What Happened While Hero Was Dead, which gives one of Shakespeare's famously underdeveloped women characters a chance to take up space and come into her own in a way that is exciting, funny, and sexy."

On the closing night of the live virtual readings, Sunday, October 24, Last Drive to Dodge by Andrew Lee Creech brings American history to life featuring M.L. Roberts, a core member of ACT Theatre in Seattle; TV and theatre actor Krystel Lucas; OSF actors Danforth Comins and Erica Sullivan; and Artists Repertory Theatre resident artist Josie Seid; with stage directions read by Allison Walker. This historical adventure shines a light on the history of Black cowboys and the ranching industry in the late 19th century. It is directed by Valerie Curtis-Newton, the head of directing and playwriting at University of Washington's School of Drama.

"The American West is an overly romanticized and whitewashed period in American history," says Creech. "I wanted to write a story set in that time period with Black people as the protagonists, and in a romance all their own."

All four winning plays will be presented with live virtual performances and talkbacks with the audience Thursday, October 21, through Sunday, October 24, at 6 pm PT each day. A week of encore on-demand presentations will be available October 26 through 31. Tickets for the virtual play readings are priced on a sliding scale, starting at $15.

Also part of the Festival Week is the kickoff event, a virtual launch party and playwright panel where you can meet the winning playwrights, at 6 pm PT, Wednesday, October 20. Tickets for the launch party are $10 or free for ANPF members. ANPF will also offer a playwriting workshop from 10 am to 12 pm PT, Saturday, October 23, and a special free panel discussion with ANPF's New Voices emerging playwrights from 2 to 3 pm PT, Sunday, October 24.

For tickets and details about all the artists and events of the Festival, see ashlandnewplays.org.