Casting Announced For TheatreWorks' 20th Anniversary NEW WORKS FESTIVAL

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley has set the casting for its 20th Anniversary New Works Festival, a unique program that offers an extraordinary opportunity for audiences to experience new plays and musicals in their early stages of development. Four new works will be brought to life in readings featuring actors Emily Kuroda (“Gilmore Girls”), Ranjita Chakravarty (“Never Have I Ever”), Rachna Khatau (“The Big Bang Theory,” “Raven's Home”), Tiffany Yvonne Cox (“American Horror Stories,” “Reasonable Doubt,” “Grey's Anatomy”), Claire Kwon (Almost Famous on Broadway), and Mary Jo McConnell (“Hunters,” “Masters of Sex”). The casts also include Miriam A. Laube (who will direct Queen in TheatreWorks' 53rd Season) and regional theatre stars Lawrence-Michael C. Arias, Rinabeth Apostol, Lucinda Hitchcock Cone, Ezra Reaves, Danielle Levin, Lynne Soffer, Teressa Foss, Jacqueline De Muro, Michael Patrick Gaffney, and Uma Paranjpe.

Seasoned film and TV actor Michael Gaston (Bridge of Spies, Inception, “The Man in the High Castle”) stars in his globe-trotting solo show with music Low Expectations. The additional offerings in TheatreWorks' 20th Anniversary Festival are Min Kahng's Happy Pleasant Valley: A Senior Sex Scandal Murder Mystery Musical, a rollicking musical comedy about scandals and murder in a senior living community; Minita Gandhi's Nerve, an aromatic dark comedy that includes on-stage cooking and shares recipes and bites with the audience; and Bess Welden's National Jewish Playwriting Contest winner Madeleines, a drama that explores sibling conflict, family legacies, and treasured recipes. The popular festival runs August 11-20, 2023 at the Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Rd., Palo Alto. Festival passes ($60 general) and single event tickets ($20) can be purchased online at theatreworks.org or by calling (650) 463-1960.

TheatreWorks will kick off the Festival 6pm Friday, August 11 with Before the Ink Dries: A Special TheatreWorks Fundraiser with David Henry Hwang and Rajiv Joseph, a benefit featuring a dinner and onstage conversation with two of America's most fascinating contemporary playwrights: Tony Award winner David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly, Chinglish, Yellow Face, Soft Power) and Obie Award winner Rajiv Joseph (King James, Archduke, Describe The Night, The Lake Effect, The North Pool, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo). In addition, actor/activist Shakina (NBC's “Connecting,” NBC's “Quantum Leap,” Hulu's “Difficult People”) returns to TheatreWorks for the first time since her hit 2014 New Works Festival appearance to perform a special concert premiering never-before-heard songs from her brand-new musical 5 & Dime. Songs and Stories with Shakina: A Musical TheatreWorks Fundraiser and Party, a benefit performance followed by an after-party with drinks and dancing, will take place 7pm Friday, August 18. Audiences can meet the 20th Anniversary New Works Festival's featured playwrights and ask them about their process creating brave new works for the American theatre in a Meet the Artists Panel 12pm Sunday, August 20. The conversation will be moderated by TheatreWorks Associate Producer of Casting & Literary Management Jeffrey Lo.

 

The Festival lineup is as follows:

 

READINGS:
 

HAPPY PLEASANT VALLEY:
A SENIOR SEX SCANDAL MURDER MYSTERY MUSICAL

Book, Music, and Lyrics by Min Kahng

Directed by Jeffrey Lo

Music Direction by William Liberatore

Supported by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley Commissioning Fund

 

8/12 @ 8pm • 8/16 @ 7pm • 8/19 @ 8pm

 

Cast

Jade Park - Claire Kwon

June Park - Emily Kuroda

Dean - Ezra Reaves

Bernice - Jacqueline De Muro

Vicki - Lucinda Hitchcock Cone

DeeDee - Mary Jo McConnell

Mort - Lawrence-Michael C. Arias

Ensemble - Rinabeth Apostol & Michael Patrick Gaffney

Vlogger “Self-Made” Jade Kim is in hot water for making ageist remarks on her channel. When she learns that her grandmother June is about to get kicked out of Happy Pleasant Valley Senior Apartments, Jade gladly comes to the rescue…while of course recording and broadcasting her heroine-ism to burnish her own reputation. What Jade doesn't count on is the cause of June's eviction threat: her “active living” sex life, which seems to be killing the men she sleeps with. June swears that she and her libido are being framed and enlists Jade's help in tracking down the real murderer.

Happy Pleasant Valley seeks to explode the myth that the enjoyment of sex stops after a certain age, and will explore themes of generation gaps, ageism, and finding connection and relevance in the digital age – all with a little bit of good old-fashioned murder thrown in.

Min Kahng is the recipient of a Kurjan/Butler commission from TheatreWorks Silicon Valley.

Min Kahng (Book, Music, and Lyrics, he/him) is an award-winning playwright, composer, lyricist, and creative coach whose works include The Four Immigrants: An American Musical Manga, which debuted in TheatreWorks' 2016 New Works Festival and received a hit production at TheatreWorks in 2017 that won seven San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards, including “Entire Production – Bay Area.” Kahng's other works include Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Jin vs. The Beach, GOLD: The Midas Musical, and The Adventures of Honey & Leon. Kahng is MacDowell Fellow, a Travis Bogard Fellow, and an alumnus of the Playwrights Foundation Resident Initiative, Berkeley Repertory Theatre's Ground Floor, and Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Kahng is an NEA Grant Recipient, a Jonathan Larson Grant Finalist, a Richard Rodgers Award Finalist, and a Dramatists Guild committee member.

Jeffrey Lo (Director, he/him) is a Filipino-American playwright and director who helmed TheatreWorks Silicon Valley's productions of Little Shop of Horrors, The Language Archive, and The Santaland Diaries. He is the recipient of the Leigh Weimers Emerging Artist Award, the Emerging Artist Laureate by Arts Council Silicon Valley, and Theatre Bay Area Director's TITAN Award. His plays have been produced and workshopped at TheatreWorks, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Bindlestiff Studio, City Lights Theater Company, and Custom Made Theatre Company. Directing credits include works at San Francisco Playhouse, Center Repertory Company, Capital Stage, Hillbarn Theatre, Los Altos Stage Company, Palo Alto Players. Lo is a company member of Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company and San Francisco Playground, and is the Associate Producer of Casting & Literary Management at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley.

William Liberatore (Music Director, he/him) is TheatreWorks' Resident Musical Director and has worked as a Choir Director at Gunn High School for more than thirty years. Liberatore has conducted more than forty shows at TheatreWorks, including the World Premieres of Pride and Prejudice, The Prince of Egypt, and The Four Immigrants: An American Musical Manga, as well as hit productions of Little Shop of Horrors, Sense and Sensibility, Tuck Everlasting, Fun Home, Rags, The Life of the Party, Sweeney Todd, Once on This Island (TBA Award), Crowns, Ragtime, and Pacific Overtures. He has been a frequent recipient of the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best Musical Direction.

 

NERVE

By Minita Gandhi

Directed by Kirsten Brandt

 

8/13 @ 3pm • 8/19 @ 3pm

 

Cast

Meera - Rachna Khatau

Jyoti - Ranjita Chakravarty

Anya - Tiffany Yvonne Cox

Shakti – Miriam A. Laube

Payal - Uma Paranjpe

Jyoti, a recent widow with ailing health, finds the future of her well-being in her daughters' hands. A multigenerational and multicultural journey that explores the legacy and the love language of food, Nerve is a dark comedy meant to be an aromatic and visceral experience, with the recipes being shared and cooked on stage, as well as served to the audience.

Minita Gandhi (Playwright, she/they) is a Los Angeles-based artist who was born in Mumbai, India. Gandhi's plays include Muthaland which premiered at 16th Street Theatre, and was featured at Oregon Shakespeare Festival for CAATA, Florida Studio Theater, Victory Gardens Theater, Silk Road Rising, and PCPA TheaterWorks. Daal and Duty and The Sun and all its Sighs were featured in the American Blues Theater's Ripped Festival. Nerve was originally developed at The Ground Floor writing residency at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in collaboration with her mother Jyotsna Gandhi. Gandhi is a 2022 NYSAF Pfaelzer Award finalist and is currently working on an opera commission as a member of Minnesota Opera Company's New Works cohort.

Kirsten Brandt (Director, she/her) helmed TheatreWorks' productions of tokyo fish story and Third as well as I Enter the Valley in TheatreWorks' New Works Festival. She was the Associate Artistic Director of San Jose Repertory Theatre, served as the Executive Artistic Director of Sledgehammer Theatre, and has directed shows for The Old Globe, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Arizona Theatre Company, La Jolla Playhouse, Santa Cruz Shakespeare, City Lights Theatre

Company, Marin Theatre Company, San Diego Repertory Theatre, African-American Shakespeare Company, Jewel Theatre Company, North Coast Repertory Theatre, Sierra Repertory Theatre, and Diversionary Theatre. As a playwright, her work has been produced internationally. Brandt is the Executive Director of Nevada Conservatory Theatre and Chair of the Department of Theatre at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

 

MADELEINES

Written by Bess Welden

Directed by Leslie Martinson

2022 Winner of the National Jewish Playwriting Contest

 

8/17 @ 7pm • 8/20 @ 3pm

 

Cast

Jennifer Moritz - Teressa Foss
Debra Moritz - Danielle Levin
Rose/Lilia - Lynne Soffer

Debra, a struggling food writer, has returned to her childhood home in Ohio's Rust Belt to care for her declining mother Rose, an exacting cookie baker. When Debra's very successful older sister arrives for Rose's funeral, shared memories and old sibling grievances boil to the surface. As the sisters confront their loss, a startling secret about their mother's most-treasured Passover recipe emerges, which changes everything they thought they knew about their family. Spiced with poetry and smatterings of Yiddish and Spanish, Madeleines tells the story of a family of Jewish women grappling with how to love each other through haunted pasts, shared grief, and the solace of baking together.

Bess Welden (Playwright, she/her) won the 2022 National Jewish Playwriting Contest with her play Madeleines, which was also a finalist for the 2021 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Death Wings, her play with songs, won the 2020 Maine State Prize of the Clauder Competition for New England Playwrights and was recently produced at The Theater Project and Meetinghouse Arts in Maine. A finalist in the 2020 National Jewish Playwriting Contest, her play Refuge Malja premiered at Portland Stage Company in 2018. She has toured extensively with her solo comedies Passion of the Hausfrau and Big Mouth Thunder Thighs. Welden was a 2022 Creative Community Fellow with National Arts Strategies.

Leslie Martinson (Director, she/her) is TheatreWorks' former Associate Artistic Director and served as a director and administrator at TheatreWorks for over thirty years. She has directed many hit productions at TheatreWorks, including The 39 Steps; Frost/Nixon; The Four Immigrants: An American Musical Manga, for which she received the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Direction; as well as Calligraphy, Proof, Water by the Spoonful, Warrior Class, the Regional Premiere of Time Stands Still, the 2012 West Coast Premiere of The Pitmen Painters, and the company's acclaimed 2010 production of Superior Donuts. Martinson was a member of Lincoln Center Directors' Lab, a member of the La MaMa International Directing Symposium, and has served on Theatre Bay Area's Theatre Services Committee. In 2009, she was awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship in Stage Direction from the Arts Council of Silicon Valley for artistic achievement and community impact. 

 

LOW EXPECTATIONS

Written by and starring Michael Gaston

Directed by Giovanna Sardelli
Music Direction by Daniel Pearce

 

8/15 @ 7pm • 8/19 @ 12pm

In 2009, actor Michael Gaston was encouraged by his boss to write about his family. So, he did. Slowly. Thirteen years later, he produced two pieces, a monologue and a short story, and wove them into a play. The monologue is all true. The short story is not. The true story starts with one relative's Union Army service, then another's immigration to America from Belfast during the Great Depression, then heads to Tulsa, Hollywood, New York City, and finishes in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. The short story starts in Northern California and stays there. Both are about a lot of things, a whole lot of things, but, mostly, they're about the measurable healing power of empathy, kindness, and love. With the help of director Giovanna Sardelli and an original score written and performed live by Daniel Pearce, Gaston brings these stories together with Low Expectations.

Michael Gaston (Playwright and Performer, he/him) is a film, television, and theatre actor. He has appeared in the films including Bridge of Spies, W, Inception, Sudden Death, Ransom, First Reformed, Cop Land, Thirteen Days, Double Jeopardy, High Crimes, Sugar, Body of Lies, and The Crucible. His TV credits include “Chicago P.D.,” “The Man in the High Castle,”

“Jack Ryan,” “Madam Secretary,” “The Good Wife,” “The Leftovers,” “Unforgettable,” “Jericho,” “Blind Justice,” “24,” “For Life,” “Blindspot,” “Five Days at Memorial,” “Fleishman is in Trouble,” “Mayor of Kingstown,” “The Mentalist,” “Fringe,” and “Prison Break.” He performed on Broadway in Lucky Guy and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, and has appeared onstage at The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, and New York Shakespeare Festival.

Giovanna Sardelli (Director, she/her) recently directed the World Premiere of Kareem Fahmy's A Distinct Society for TheatreWorks and Pioneer Theatre Company. She will direct the West Coast Premiere of Mrs. Christie in TheatreWorks' 2023-24 Season, scheduled to perform October 4-29, 2023. (See full bio below)

Daniel Pearce (Music Director and Original Score, he/him) is an actor, musician, and visual artist. He appeared on Broadway in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and Machinal, and has performed with The Public Theater, Long Wharf Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, McCarter Theatre Center, and Geva Theatre Center. His film and TV credits include Salt, Godzilla, The Last Thing Mary Saw, “The Good Fight,” “Law & Order,” “Criminal Intent,” and “All My Children.” He received the Lunt-Fontanne Fellowship for excellence in acting.

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley's New Works Festival has launched many new works onto TheatreWorks' main stage and to national productions, including Broadway's Tony Award-winning Best Musical Memphis and the 2018 Obie Award winner for Best New American Play, Rajiv Joseph's Describe The Night. The Festival has given playgoers their first looks at new works by such luminaries as Andrew Lippa, Stephen Schwartz, Wendy Wasserstein, Marsha Norman, Christopher Chen, Rachel Sheinkin, David Hein and Irene Sankoff, Rajiv Joseph, Duncan Sheik, Rogelio Martinez, Kimber Lee, Joe DiPietro, Rehana Lew Mirza, and many more.

TheatreWorks' Artistic Director Giovanna Sardelli has directed and developed plays throughout the country. Sardelli's many directing credits at TheatreWorks include this season's A Distinct Society; as well as the World Premiere of Nan and the Lower Body (2022), It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play (2021), the Northern California Premiere of They Promised Her the Moon (2020), Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph's Archduke (2019), FINKS (2018), The Velocity of Autumn and Crimes of the Heart (2016), Joseph's The Lake Effect (2015), Somewhere by Matthew Lopez (2013), and the World Premiere of Joseph's The North Pool (2011). She is an award-winning director who has worked on numerous plays by Rajiv Joseph including the World Premiere of Archduke (Mark Taper Forum) and Guards at the Taj (Geffen Playhouse; 2016 Ovation Award for Best Production of a Play) and the World Premiere of the Obie Award-winning play Describe The Night (2014 New Works Festival, Alley Theatre, Atlantic Theater Company in NYC). She has directed World Premieres of plays by Theresa Rebeck, Lynn Rosen, Joe Gilford, Jeff Augustine, Lauren Yee, Zayd Dohrn, Melissa Ross, Lila Rose Kaplan, Matthew Lopez, and Zoe Kazan, among others. Sardelli directed “Marvel's Squirrel Girl: The Unbeatable Radio Show!,” a podcast series by Marvel Entertainment and Sirius XM. Sardelli will direct the West Coast Premiere of Mrs. Christie in TheatreWorks' 2023-24 Season, scheduled to perform October 4-29, 2023.

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, led by Artistic Director Giovanna Sardelli in partnership with Executive Director Debbie Chinn, presents a wide variety of contemporary plays and musicals, revitalizes great works of the past, and serves more than 100,000 patrons per year. Founded in 1970 by Robert Kelley, TheatreWorks has grown from a truly original Silicon Valley start-up to become one of the nation's leading professional non-profit theatre companies. TheatreWorks was honored as the recipient of the 2019 Regional Theatre Tony Award. TheatreWorks also champions new work, offering artists support and a creative home as they develop new stories for the American theatre. Offstage, TheatreWorks' arts education programs in local schools and arts engagement programs in Silicon Valley neighborhoods uplift its audiences and strengthen community bonds. Onstage and off, TheatreWorks welcomes the mosaic of people that embody the Bay Area and beyond, celebrating the transformative power of theatre to ignite imagination, inspire conversation, and enliven our souls.

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