DRIVING THE GIRLS Live Reading To Take Place At Playwrights Foundation May 17

Playwrights Foundation will present a public reading of Driving the Girls, a new play by Resident Playwright Cat Brooks on Saturday, May 17, 2025 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Set in late 1990's Las Vegas, Driving the Girls is a semi-autobiographical play about Mary, an ambitious Black college theater student whose escape from the city's vices and pitfalls is impacted by an unexpected community of sex workers.

The staged reading will be directed by Lisa Marie Rollins, and performed by Tanika Baptiste, Camille Collaço, Kennzeil Love, Jordan Maria Don, and May Simon Ramos. Stage directions read by Amanda Le Nguyen. Dramaturgy by Cathleen Riddley.

"Cat is a dynamic artivist," says Executive Artistic Director Jessica Bird Beza. "She infuses her work with the power of her activism that humanizes those that are often overlooked and thrown to the side by society. Driving the Girls is a heartfelt piece about how unlikely friends help each other to follow their dreams."

Brooks was inspired by her real-life experiences as a college student, supplementing her income at Aaron Brothers Art and Framing by driving "working girls," who she formed close bonds with. "As a society we disappear working women," says playwright Cat Brooks. "We demonize, we criminalize, we stigmatize. We forget that these are whole human beings, with hopes and dreams and aspirations and talents and children and families. I wanted to have that conversation and have it intersect with those women being women of color, in a place where I grew up, where I learned very early that women are bought and they are sold. I think that one of the places that misogynistic violence hides is in justifying it by the type of woman they are. And I hope this opens up a whole other conversation."

Audiences will have the opportunity to view Driving the Girls on-demand starting Monday, June 23rd through Sunday, June 29th. Reservations for both the in person reading and on-demand can be made by visiting www.playwrightsfoundation.org.

Cat Brooks (she/her) has been performing on stage & screen for over 30 years. After receiving her BA in theater, she trained briefly at the Royal National Theater Studio in London. Cat is an actress, director, playwright, dramaturg, resident artist with the Lower Bottom Playaz and 3 Girls Theater and a member of the 2024-2025 Resident Playwright cohort with Playwrights Foundation. Notable roles include Lady Macbeth at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and starring in her one-woman show 'Tasha, about the in-custody murder of Natasha McKenna. Brooks has been nominated Best Featured Actress by the Bay Area Theater Circle Critics and 'Tasha won the Best of the SF Fringe Festival in 2017, 3 Girls Theatre Salon Series Playwright Festival in 2018 and was featured in the 2019 BAMBD Festival in Oakland. Her short film "Bottled Spirits " is currently touring the global film festival circuit winning nominations and awards. She's the co-founder and executive director of the Anti Police-Terror Project and hosts Law & Disorder on KPFA weekday mornings. Cat was also the runner-up in Oakland's 2018 mayoral election, facing incumbent Libby Schaaf.

Since its founding, Playwrights Foundation has supported 36 playwrights through its Resident Playwrights Program, many of whom now have robust careers in the theater throughout the country with some recognized among the most produced playwrights in the U.S. Many have won awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship, Steinberg Award, and Obie. Notable alumni include Lauren Gunderson, Christopher Chen, Jonathan Spector, Betty Shamieh, and Michael Gene Sullivan, to name a few.

ABOUT DRIVING THE GIRLS

Las Vegas, 1990s. For Mary, an ambitious, Black college student, the city of fast thrills is a gritty, personal hellscape. Navigating her final year as a theatre major and desperate to leave the city's constraints, Mary spends her evenings at a local dive bar where she meets Krissy, Deb, and Angel-three sex workers who offer her extra cash to drive them to their appointments. Through the numbing neon of the haunting Strip, Mary witnesses their pain and experiences some of her own, learns about their lives and the depth of their dreams, and ultimately, surrenders to a connection that changes them all.

A semi-autobiographical play, Driving the Girls illuminates the humanity of these women-often left to be erased by society, unseen and unheard-and asks: Who is allowed to dream in this America? Who can we call family when biological family fails?

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