2018 Festival In Pictures
For our 7th Annual New Works Festival, we invited Bay Area women playwrights to explore the anxiety and surreal politics of our current times. Are things in San Francisco as weird and wicked today as they were when Shakespeare’s three witches stirred up their supernatural cauldron of discontent? With ten days of unique theater events, our entertaining, inspiring line-up of original readings, performances, on-stage conversations and events offered something (or many things!) for everyone. More than one hundred Bay Area theatre-makers participated in making the 2018 Festival our most far-ranging and inclusive event to date.
THE BUBBLE RISES: OPENING NIGHT
3GT INVESTIGATES
Play development is usually an extended process, but times like these compel artists to respond with immediacy. 3GT’s newest project debuts with an immersive, one act work-in-progress that uses the technique of “investigative theater” (theater taking its cue from real events) to explore the current administration’s war on reproductive rights of undocumented women and girls at the border. Lisa Marie Rollins directs a script by 3GT Investigates writing team Jennifer Lynne Roberts, Nia Fairweather, and Linda Giron.
A visceral performance was followed by an all-star panel of activists in the field who spoke to what’s really happening on the ground (and at the Supreme Court), what we can do, and how their organizations are dealing with this crisis. NARAL Pro-Choice California Exec Director Amy Everitt is joined by Phyllida Burlingame(Reproductive Justice & Gender Equity Director, ACLU), Kimberly Ellis (former ED, Emerge CA, ), Allie Lahey (Program Mgr, NARAL CA ).
L-R Amy Everitt. Allie Lahey, Phyllida Burlingame & Kimberly Ellis
Two Coins for the Ferryman
Liar Liar’s Two Coins for the Ferryman sent six audience members on an immersive quest through the Greek underworld, each embodying a hero from Greek mythology, each with their own task to complete.
LOST CHINATOWNS
Writer/dancer/performance artist Cynthia Ling Lee was fascinating in Lost Chinatowns, a multimedia dance-theater work-in-progress exploring the vibrancy and eventual disappearance of Santa Cruz’s Chinatowns from 1860-1955.
STEAM
Bowstring’s fantastical, non-linear work-in-progress Steam is inspired by the true story of three teenage siblings in the 1850’s who, to save the family farm, tour the country by steam train as dancers.
STAGED READING: “TASHA BY CAT BROOKS”
One woman show loosely based on the 2015 in-custody murder of Natasha McKenna, a 38-year old woman living with schizophrenia, in the Fairfax County Virginia Jail. A compelling examination of the intersection of race, gender, mental health and policing. Directed by Ayodele Nzinga. Salon Series Finalist.
BURSTING THE BUBBLE: SIX VIEWS
An evening of linked staged readings on the theme by a dynamic crew of women playwrights. Prepare for a roller-coaster ride of “bubble” responses from emotional to scary to just plain hysterically funny. Written by Madeleine Butler, Marie Cartier, Elizabeth Flanagan, Andrea J. Love, Jenny McAllister and Eteya Trinidad. Directed by Erin Gilley.
GIRLWRIGHTS IN PERFORMANCE
Video and images (c) 2018 Troubleshoot Productions LLC.
