Theater Alliance Ignites Creativity With HOTHOUSE New Play Block Party

Theater Alliance has announced the return of its signature new works initiative, the Hothouse New Play Development Series, with a bold reimagining for 2025: the Hothouse New Play Block Party on April 25th and 26th. This two-day celebration of bold voices, fresh stories, and community-centered performance is the next installment of performances at their pop-up home in Southwest DC.

Long known as one of DC's most dynamic incubators of new work, the Hothouse series has launched countless new works onto full productions and national stages. This year, the Hothouse New Play Block Party expands into a public-facing, festival-style experience that invites audiences into the heart of the creative process—where rough drafts meet roaring applause and the seeds of tomorrow's theater take root.

Throughout the Block Party, Theater Alliance will present two full-length workshop readings and six excerpts of world-premiere readings from local DMV playwrights whose voices reflect the pulse of our city and the urgency of our time. In addition, the Block Party will feature a sampler of new works-in-progress by York Walker, Lindsay Joelle, and Kareem Fahmy – three playwrights from the Theater Alliance's 2024-25 mainstage season, giving our audiences an exclusive look at other works from these familiar artists. With a commitment to centering youth voices and civic dialogue, the Block Party will also feature workshopped student-written plays from their ENOUGH! Initiative that takes on the devastating reality of gun violence in our nation. Created in collaboration with educators and community mentors, these works highlight the power of storytelling as a means of resistance, resilience, and healing. Theater Alliance was chosen to be a  Core Theater member and pilot the program with ENOUGH! Theater Alliance has also implemented this new play development curriculum as its primary education programming with DC youth.

Audiences will also have the opportunity to see Useless Woman. This moving new one-woman show pushes the boundaries of personal narrative, reclaiming space for underrepresented stories with raw honesty and theatrical power. Theater Alliance's Hothouse New Play Block Party culminates in a joyful, genre-blending cabaret—a celebratory finale that brings together artists and audience in a spirit of shared creativity, connection, and fun.

“We're excited to show the works of over a dozen writers, ranging from high school students to seasoned professionals, most of whom are local to the DC area,” says NNPN Producer-in-Residence Aria Velz. “It's a place for playwrights to take risks, for community members to discover the stories being written in their own backyard, and for our company to reaffirm its commitment to bold, inclusive, transformative storytelling. At Theater Alliance, we're not waiting for the next big thing—we're growing it, right here in DC.”

This Block Party format allows Theater Alliance to throw open its doors—offering admissions to single events or an all-access wristband to ensure that theater remains accessible, inclusive, and representative. In an era where the American theater landscape continues to shift, Theater Alliance doubles down on its belief that the future of theater lies in the stories we dare to tell and the communities we build around them.

FEATURED WORKS

• Familial Comforts by Sehat Yon'shea Walker
  What do Black women do in kitchens? On Labor Day weekend, a few months shy of the one-year anniversary of the passing of their Grandmother, affectionately known as G, for almost forty-something-year-old sisters, Sissi and Tasha post up in G's famed kitchen to reflect and challenge one another as they unpack each other's lives and their matriarchal traditions. G's home/kitchen was always a sanctuary for Sissi, G's protege, who dreamed of becoming a Chef, yet it was always a place of contention for the brilliant and feisty climate researcher Tasha. As they prepare for a family cookout, how might the two sisters navigate their feelings around their expectations of themselves, each other, and their future?
• Dispatched by Elliott Kashner
  A town on the edge, Rykerstown, PA, has been devastated by opioids and the closure of a factory that was once the economic lifeblood for the residents there. Charlotte, an emergency dispatcher, has found herself alone in a call center after her replacements fail to turn up. Desperation turns to terror as the calls to 9-1-1 become increasingly strange throughout the night, and it becomes clear that a new horror is befalling the town.
• Excerpts of plays in development by local writers: David Higgins, Gursimrat Kaur, Doug Robinson, Alexander Rolle, Hope Villenueva, and Ayesha Zackria.
• Useless Woman and the AI Therapist, a one-woman show written and performed by Maame-Yaa Aforo.
• 10-minute plays by high school students of Digital Pioneers Academy as part of ENOUGH! Plays Against Gun Violence.
• Sneak peeks at new works from playwrights of Theater Alliance's current season:
  • Fountains of Youth by Kareem Fahmy
  • Achilles in Gitmo by Lindsay Joelle
  • Soul Records by York Walker
• Cabaret performed by Here & There - Deimoni Brewington and Jordyn Taylor