THE 2006 Pacific Playwrights Festival

The Pacific Playwrights Festival (PPF), a national forum for playwrights and theatre leaders, is 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 9th annual Festival, May 5-7, 2006 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

Human Error
by Keith Reddin
directed by Les Waters
Friday, May 5 at 1 p.m. on the Argyros Stage

From the ashes of a catastrophic jet airliner crash, a single survivor’s tender story of enduring love contrasts with another unfolding drama. Two investigators, thrown together at the crash site, find themselves on a personal collision course. Searching for answers in the wreckage, they slowly expose truths from their own lives, but only one of them reaches deeply to reveal everything.

Empty Sky
by Sarah Treem
directed by Bill Rauch
Friday May 5 at 3:30 p.m. on the Segerstrom Stage

In this thrilling new setting of an old, old story, a father’s crisis of faith threatens to unravel his family and his precarious sanity. Unemployed rabbi Abraham Glass sees his wife struggling to hold things together while his son prepares for adulthood by falling in love and enlisting in the Marines. But Abraham can’t fulfill family obligations until he finds out exactly what kind of divinity occupies the empty sky above his Montauk home, and the empty space inside his soul. Two mysterious visitors, a boy and a young man, may hold the answers.

System Wonderland
by David Wiener
directed by Art Manke
Saturday May 6 at 10:30 a.m. on the Segerstrom Stage

Evelyn and Jerry once made brilliant movies together. They even won an Oscar. But that was ten years ago, a lifetime in the movie business, especially for an actress who has lost the glow of youthful beauty and a scriptwriter who can’t get past page ten. Then Jerry’s producer has an idea: he’ll send Aaron to them. The kid’s a film school graduate; even better, he’s a fan of Jerry’s movies. But Jerry knows that fans can be fanatical, and wunderkind assistants can have ravenous ambitions. It pays to be ready when you swim with the sharks.

The Piano Teacher
by Julia Cho
directed by Kate Whoriskey
Sunday May 7 at 10:30 a.m. on the Segerstrom Stage

Mrs. K would like to tell you a story. She’d like it to be a nice story, full of pleasant memories about her days giving piano lessons to children in her neighborhood. She’d like to forget about that one awful thing that happened to that one boy long ago. And she’d like to make sure that you remember the dearly departed Mr. K as she does: a devoted husband and friend to the children who came to her home for lessons. That’s what she’d like. But the truth is much darker, and it won’t go away.

WORKSHOP PRODUCTION

Leitmotif
by Victoria Stewart
directed by Jessica Kubzansky
Friday, May 5 at 7:45; Saturday May 6 at 2:30 and 7:45; and Sunday May 7 at 2:30 in the Nicholas Studio
(No Late Seating)

One summer when she was a child, Cassandra and her mother, a brilliant but troubled poet, spent a week on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Now she has returned to a place she barely remembers and to Beatrice, a great aunt who seems to haunt the house, even while she is still alive. Cassandra hopes to uncover her mother’s letters and find some answers to disturbing family mysteries. But her eccentric relative and the soft-spoken man next door have surprising memories of that summer long ago.

FULL PRODUCTIONS

The Studio
written, choreographed and directed by Christopher d'Amboise
March 31 - May 7, 2006

In a bare, mirrored studio high above Broadway, a legendary choreographer creates a new ballet for two dancers—a veteran who has seen it all and a newcomer who wants it all—driving them to achieve greatness.

Blue Door
by Tanya Barfield
directed by Leah C. Gardiner
April 23 - May 14, 2006

With abundant humor and original song, one family’s history comes alive as a professor is confronted by four generations of his ancestors—from slavery through Black Power to the halls of academia.

More information on the Pacific Playwrights Festival.