Lineup includes works by AAPI writers.
IAMA Theatre Company, committed to cultivating new voices and creating new, boundary-pushing work, is hosting its seventh annual New Works Festival through Dec. 15.
Featuring new plays presented as staged readings, IAMA’s New Works Festival gives audiences an early look at future hits and allows playwrights to experience public reaction to their work for the first time. Thanks to a generous award from the National Endowment for the Arts, this season’s festival has been expanded to eight new plays, up from six in previous years.
The second half of the festival will take place Dec. 12-15 at Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Los Angeles. Tickets ($18 for each reading, includes fees) are available at iamatheatre.com.
“An important part of IAMA Theatre Company’s mission is to develop new works from the ground up. Our New Works Festival focuses on bold storytelling and compelling narratives that accurately reflect the diverse spectrum of human experience in contemporary America,” said IAMA Theatre Company Artistic Director Stefanie Black. “IAMA values the creation of art and the cultivation of artists that challenge boundaries and take risks. Deliberate care is taken throughout the festival to create a safe creatively rigorous space for artists to explore, experiment, test, question, and thrive.
“We are very grateful to our community for helping us cultivate an environment where our artists can play and grow. And, thanks to the generosity of the National Endowment for the Arts, we are able to include two more readings in this year’s festival, provide additional compensation to the artists, and also offer reduced ticket prices, enabling the public to encounter more new works firsthand.”
Since 2018, IAMA’s New Works Festival has emerged as IAMA’s leading development and community engagement program and provides the opportunity to take the first step in curating new plays of artistic excellence that will be considered for future productions. The festival invites the local community into the creative process and welcomes social gatherings and discussions following each play presentation, sparking important dialogue, connection, and creative exchange, both on and off the stage.
New works developed during the festival have gone on to full, world premiere productions not only at IAMA, but at theatres across the country.
This year’s lineup includes:
“Beautiful Blessed Child,” written by Daria Miyeko Marinelli and directed by Reena Dutt, on Thursday, Dec. 12, at 8 p.m.
Zen minimalist cowboy Aimiko has never taken a road trip with their mom. Hamstring-slicing housewife Sharon has never seen nor heard of any sort of mother-daughter-child road trip. And so, these brave pioneers take to the road, driving west at 10 miles per hour above the speed limit, with tales of cannibals, crane wives, and samurai children buzzing over the airwaves, offering avenues of survival, all of which are only moderately helpful when Aimiko’s car radiator suddenly goes dead. This is their story. Kind of. And again. And again.
The cast: Ima Djie, Hazel Lozano, Sharon Omi.
Marinelli is a Japanese Italian playwright and screenwriter whose work has been performed at Victory Gardens Theater, Ensemble Theatre Company, La Jolla Playhouse’s WOW Festival, Atlantic Theatre Company, The Flea, and HERE Arts Center, among others.
Marinelli has developed work with Cirque du Soleil, Roundabout Theatre Company, The Playwrights Realm, Fault Line Theatre, Seven Devils New Play Foundry, SPACE on Ryder Farm, The New Harmony Project, Jackalope Theatre, pseudonym productions, Ensemble Studio Theatre-LA, and The Kennedy Center’s MFA Playwrights Workshop and TYA/USA’s New Visions New Voices at The Kennedy Center.
They currently serve on the board for The New Harmony Project (vice chair) and Fault Line Theatre. Most recently, Marinelli was accepted to the EST/LA’s Ignite Cohort to develop a verbatim piece on the climate crisis and our future through it (“What Happens Next”) and their original pilot (“We Are Your Villain”) was a finalist for The Black List’s NRDC Climate Storytelling Fellowship.
Dutt is dedicated to new and reimagined texts that catapult polarizing conversations through unexpected stories with the bodies, voices and life experiences of the underheard. She recently opened “Galileo’s Daughter” by Jessica Dickey in the Berkshires at WAM transferring to Boston’s Central Square Theater. Her Broadway debut was assistant directing on “The Collaboration” starring Paul Bettany and Jeremy Pope.
Upcoming collaborations include “The Magician’s Sister” (Kayenta Arts) and “The Yoga Play” (CSULB). In New York, Dutt has worked with Columbia University, The Playwrights Realm, A.R.T. and on the West Coast Chalk Rep, CalArts, Artists At Play, UC Riverside, Artists Repertory Theatre, Coeurage Ensemble, UC Riverside, Greenway Court Theatre, East West Players, and Sacred Fools.
She has served as an assistant/associate director in works at Manhattan Theatre Club (Broadway), NYTW (Off-Broadway), The Public (Off-Broadway), and Geffen Playhouse. The Drama League NY directing fellow, LCT Directors Lab and Directors Lab West fellow is also a film director and producer, having screened films at over 80 festivals worldwide including Sundance, LAFF, Outfest, Frameline, Cucalorous, NBCUniversal, BET, PBS/Latino and HBO.
“Care Less,” written by Chloé Hung and directed by Lily Tung Crystal, on Saturday, Dec. 14, at 8 p.m.
Has one ever felt like no matter what they did, they’d never meet their parents’ expectations? Meet Dad. He’s enlisted the help of The Scientist to create the perfect AI daughter, Claudia. But with each iteration of Claudia, he finds fault. Little does he know that he is the subject in the experiment. Viewer discretion is advised as seeing this play may make one want to call their parents … or block their number.
The cast: Kim Goza, Kelvin Han Yee, Tina Huang, Terry Li.
Hung is a writer and director. Her plays include “Three Women of Swatow” (Tarragon Theatre, Dora Award nominee for outstanding new play; Centaur Theatre), “Issei He Say” (New Jersey Rep), “All Our Yesterdays” (Toronto Fringe Fest’s Patron’s Pick, Next Stage Theatre Fest). She has workshopped plays with Geffen Theatre, Great Plains Theatre Commons, Stratford Festival’s Playwrights Retreat, Banff Playwrights Lab, Factory Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, and The Kennedy Center.
Hung is a Playwrights’ Center core writer and holds the Rhimes Unsung Voices commission from IAMA Theatre Company. In TV and film, she has written for “Queen Sugar,” “Cherish the Day,” “The Watchful Eye,” and developed for Netflix. She is a Film Independent Screenwriting Lab fellow. Her short films include “Signal” (Women in Film’s Production program), and “Gem & Shaz” (Bell Media/Crave).
Crystal is a director, actor/singer, and the artistic director of East West Players in Los Angeles. She is also the former artistic director of Theater Mu in Minneapolis-St. Paul and co-founder of Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company in the San Francisco Bay Area.
As a director, her recent productions include the world premiere of Jessica Huang and Jacinth Greywoode’s new musical “Blended 和 (Harmony): The Kim Loo Sisters” (Mu/History Theatre); the world premiere of Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay’s “The Kung Fu Zombies Saga” (Mu); Lauren Yee’s “Cambodian Rock Band” (Mu/Jungle Theater); Susan Soon He Stanton’s “Today Is My Birthday” (Mu); and Steven Karam’s “The Humans” (Park Square Theatre), which won the Twin Cities Theater Bloggers’ Favorite Play 2022.
She also helmed David Henry Hwang’s “Chinglish” and “Flower Drum Song” (Palo Alto Players), and the world premiere of Leah Nanako Winkler’s “Two Mile Hollow” (Ferocious Lotus), all for which she was named a Theatre Bay Area Award finalist for outstanding direction.
As an actor/singer, Crystal has performed at theaters across the country, including Cal Shakes, Jungle Theater, Magic Theatre, Mixed Blood, New World Stages, Playwrights’ Center, Portland Center Stage, San Francisco Playhouse, Syracuse Stage, and Theater Mu.