THE 2005 pacific playwrights festival

The Pacific Playwrights Festival (PPF) is a national forum for playwrights and theatre leaders dedicated to developing and producing new American plays.

Within the American theatre, there is an ongoing need for playwrights to have the opportunity to develop new work with the support of a community of artists.  In recent years, many programs that did exist have been redirected or ended.  The goal of PPF is to provide a gathering place for writers and theatre leaders to meet informally, sharing ideas and interests as new projects emerge.

The 8th annual Festival, May 6-8, 2005 includes four public play readings and a workshop production that showcase new works by established and emerging writers, as well as two world premiere productions.

READINGS

Bossa Nova
by Kirsten Greenidge
directed by Casey Stangl
Friday, May 6 at 1 p.m. on the Argyros Stage

Greenidge’s second commission from SCR zig-zags with spellbinding theatricality through the formative years in the life of an African-American woman. While Dee attempts to avoid the manicured lawns of her family’s upper middle class existence, she continually stumbles over quirky characters eager to help shape her life. Powerful and poetic, Bossa Nova bursts with humor as it asks serious questions about the search for identity in a world filled with contradictions.

The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler
by Jeff Whitty
directed by Bill Rauch
Friday May 6 at 3:30 p.m. on the Segerstrom Stage

The problem with Hedda is she keeps shooting herself, and Tesman has to bring Mammy out of Gone With the Wind to clean up. In this boisterous and irreverent comedy, Hedda lives on in “The Neighborhood of Tragic Women,” an alternative hell where fictional characters are forced to endure until at last they are forgotten. Who can blame her for getting tired of playing the same role over and over for more than a century. Finally, Hedda escapes, but will she ever really die?

Rabbit Hole
by David Lindsay-Abaire
directed by Carolyn Cantor
Saturday May 7 at 10:30 a.m. on the Segerstrom Stage

No one tackles serious subjects with Lindsay-Abaire’s wit and insight or introduces erratic characters so sweetly. The award-winning author of Kimberly Akimbo and Fuddy Meers surprises us again in this riveting play about a couple facing terrible loss. Becca and Howie try to cope while Becca’s well-meaning mom and off-kilter sister lift spirits in their own ways. Left alone in a now empty room, Curious George wears a baseball cap and tugs at our hearts.

Ridiculous Fraud
by Beth Henley
directed by Sharon Ott
Sunday May 8 at 10:30 a.m. on the Segerstrom Stage
Commissioned by the McCarter Theatre

The Pulitzer Prize winner is back in the Old South with a story of three brothers bonded by love and jealousy in this comedy about the nature of human nature. Daddy can’t make his son Lafcad’s wedding because he’s in jail for fraud, which doesn’t really matter because Lafcad isn’t planning to attend, either. But someone will have to pay off the bride’s indignant parents. Among the squabbling brothers and assorted family members, truth, lies, forgiveness and revenge get all mixed up—but life in the Garden District, duck hunting and visits to the cemetery are constants.

WORKSHOP PRODUCTION

Tough Titty
by Oni Faida Lampley
directed by Mark Rucker
Friday, May 6 at 7:45; Saturday May 7 at 2:30 and 7:45; and Sunday May 8 at 2:30 in the Nicholas Studio
(No Late Seating)

This daring new play examines life, love, friendship, faith and motherhood through the story of a courageous young wife and mother struggling to survive breast cancer. When Angela’s world begins to tumble, she props it back up through cussedness and endless spirit while holding down a job, taking care of the kids, cajoling her husband and conversing with God. Actress, essayist and screenwriter, Lampley writes with bold strokes on a theme so large it brings to life Tiepolo’s “Martyrdom of St. Agatha,” in all its terror and comfort.

FULL PRODUCTIONS

A Naked Girl on the Appian Way
by Richard Greenberg
directed by Mark Rucker
April 1 - May 8, 2005

With his latest comedy, the Tony Award winner broadens his world to include nearly the entire family of man in one family, where there's a secret behind every surprise and the surprises keep on coming.

Vesuvius
by Lucinda Coxon
directed by David Emmes
April 24 - May 15, 2005

In this world premiere, set at a resort near Naples, a man and woman recall loved ones lost, lost ones found—and learn to accept life’s perils.

INFORMATION

More information on the Pacific Playwrights Festival.