ICYMI: Here’s the 2024 Lineup

Relationships between brothers. Relationships between generations. Relationships concerning faith, hope and the understanding of differences.

The dynamics of how we relate to the world around us takes center stage in this year’s Pacific Playwrights Festival. The nationally renowned showcase for new play development returns May 3-5. It includes five staged readings and two full productions of Prelude to a Kiss, The Musical and Galilee, 34.

“All the writing is bold and fearlessly ambitious, and it makes for a real feeling of expansiveness in the Pacific Playwrights Festival this year. There are stories told with tremendous ensembles, stories that span lifetimes and beyond, and stories that feel transcendental as they wrestle with the indisputable,” PPF Co-Director and Director of The Lab@SCR Andy Knight said. “The great enterprise in the writing in PPF this year shows, I think, a note of optimism, too; because the resigned don’t flirt with the impossible. This group of artists is setting aside the caution that’s been ever-present in our lives throughout the past few years—and showing it’s possible to aspire again.”

Here are the five staged readings scheduled for the 2024 PPF:

Meeting for Worship
by Ana Nogueira
directed by Mike Donahue
an SCR Commission
Friday, May 3, at 1 p.m., Segerstrom Stage
About this play: What happens when the values at a Quaker high school are violated? And what does it cost to stand up and speak?

The Brothers Play
by Arya Shahi
director to be announced
Friday, May 3, at 4 p.m., Julianne Argyros StageAbout this play: Two brothers from two coasts reunite at home in Arizona. Can revisiting the past reroute the present?

You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World!
by Keiko Green
directed by Zi Alikhan
Friday, May 3, at 8 p.m., Saturday, May 4, at 8 p.m., Sunday, May 5, at 2:30 p.m., Nicholas StudioAbout this play: Who says falling apart can’t be fun? With time running out, it’s time to live it up.

Fremont Ave.
by Reggie D. White
directed by Taylor Reynolds
Saturday, May 4, at 10:30 a.m., Julianne Argyros StageAbout this play: Three generations of men—and the rock that holds them all together.

An Oxford Man
by Else Went
directed by Emma Rosa Went
Sunday, May 5, at 10:30 a.m., Segerstrom StageAbout this play: The deliciously embellished (mostly) true story of the first “modern” transgender man.

Discounted subscriptions to see all five readings can be purchased for $85. Individual tickets for readings are $20 each.