Ashland New Plays Festival Announces October Lineup – Ashland News

The 2024 season features four plays highlighting “the best new voices in American theater”

By Lee Juillerat for Ashland.news

Four plays from the 350 entries submitted to the Ashland New Plays Festival will be performed in October during the group’s Fall Festival 2024.

“ANPF readers did a fantastic job this year in narrowing down 350 submissions to 13 finalists,” said ANPF Artistic Director Jackie Apodaca. “Each of those finalists was worthy of being featured, and I had the pleasure and challenge of choosing just four winning plays from among them. The winners stood out for their humor and compassion, each exploring fundamental questions about love, freedom, and loss.”

Apodaca said the winning plays will be performed during the week-long festival.

“Come to our fall festival and meet some of the best new voices in American theater,” she said, noting, “We have family dramas, satire, a love story set in the age of artificial intelligence, and a play about life and death — featuring a flying Greta Thunberg.”

The playwrights will be in Ashland for a week of readings, development and collaboration. The four plays will be performed Oct. 16-20 at Southern Oregon University’s Main Stage Theater, 491 Mountain Ave. The festival is co-organized by award-winning playwrights E.M. Lewis and Clarence Coo.

The selected plays include Shanna Allman’s “Sync,” Minita Gandhim’s “Nerve,” Keiko Green’s “You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World,” and Novid Parsi’s “The Life You Gave Me.” Parsi was also one of four winning playwrights in 2022 for his play “Remains and Return.”

The four plays were chosen through ANPF’s “distinctive community-based reading process, which engages theater lovers from Southern Oregon and beyond,” according to an ANPF press release. “Over several months, hundreds of plays are reviewed and discussed, without revealing authorship, to arrive at the finalists.”

The winners are then selected by Apodaca. “I have to trust my gut,” she said of choosing the four, noting that part of the process involves “which voices need to be heard.”

Apodaca noted that the reading process involves 60 to 70 readers. While most are local, others come from Texas, Los Angeles and other cities and states, joining via Zoom. “They’re all avid theatergoers.”

Over a number of months, the 350 plays are reduced to about 15. Apodaca describes this as an intensive process.

The Ashland New Plays Festival has been running for more than 30 years, although the performances have not always been an annual event. Some years, up to 500 plays were allowed to be submitted, but the number was reduced because of the time it took to select winners. Apodaca said the cost of flying winners to Ashland, along with housing and other expenses, is paid for by the group’s board of directors, ticket sales and grants.

Entries for 2025 will be accepted this fall. The 350-entry limit is generally reached within a few weeks because “we are really nationally known.”

The winning plays and a brief description of the storylines, as provided by ANPF, include:

“Sync,” by Shanna Allman: After her divorce, Allison uses the latest technology from the Institute for Enhanced Connections to help her cope. As the technology proves highly effective, her best friend, Sadie, becomes increasingly concerned about its impact and consequences.

“The Life You Gave Me,” by Novid Parsi: A son tries to save his mother. She has other ideas. So do two mysterious strangers who watch the play — and ask the son to tell the story over and over until he gets it right, whatever the right thing is.

“Nerve,” by Minta Gandhi: Jyoti, a recent widow in failing health, finds the future of her well-being in the hands of her daughters. A multi-generational and multi-cultural journey that explores the love language of food, “Nerve” asks what our legacy is and what we truly leave behind. What is our value in the world if we are no longer of service to people? And what are the benefits and consequences of living in a society that prizes the idea of ​​the nuclear family versus the joint family? This black comedy is intended to be an aromatic and visceral experience. In a fully staged production, recipes would be shared and cooked on stage, as well as served to the audience.

“You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World,” by Keiko Green: M has always had a complicated relationship with their parents. But when Greg receives a terminal diagnosis, their small family feels the pressure of time running out. Greg wants to expand his world while dedicating the rest of his life to fighting climate change, while his wife Viv wants nothing more than to keep Greg locked in their home. In this theatrical extravaganza, M uses metatheatrality and the joy of dance and theater to explore themes of grief, dying, and our connection to the earth.

In addition, ANPF also congratulated this year’s finalists: “Safronia’s Daughter” by India Nicole Burton, “Lobster Man” by Jonathan Cook, “The Frisco Flash” by Julius Galacki, “Water Pipes — A Love Story” by Amy Hanson, “The Docent” by Donna Kaz, “The Re-education of Fernando Morales” by Justin P. Lopez, “Mildred Whiskey” by David MacGregor, “I is for Invisible” by DeLanna Studi and “Listen, a Black Woman is Speaking” by Marlow Wyatt.

Send an email to freelance writer Lee Juillerat at [email protected].