Playwrights' Week 2019
with plays by Diane Exavier, Shayan Lotfi, Omar Vélez Meléndez, Jaymes Sanchez, and Ren Dara Santiago
Join us for these five readings of new plays-in-progress selected through The Lark's Open Access program. Now in it's 26th year, Playwrights' Week is an annual festival of new plays designed to foster community and discovery for the writers, collaborators, and audiences. This year's plays were chosen from a record-breaking 1,320 submissions! Each new play will receive twelve hours of rehearsal in advance of a public staged reading, focused on the writer's self-stated goals. RSVP to be part of the process!
Schedule:
Monday, November 4th @ 8pm
A Dramatists Play Service, Inc. Sponsored Event
MEET THE WRITERS
Moderated by The Lark's own Andrea Hiebler and Krista Williams, this panel conversation with the playwrights will feature excerpts from each play, read by the playwrights themselves.
Tuesday, November 5th @2pm
WE BUILT OUR HOMES NEAR KINGDOMS OF ANIMALS AND MAGIC
by Omar Vélez Meléndez
Welcome to Florida! Amidst the vast nothingness of the Sunshine State, Eric doesn't really do anything in regards to his his imposter syndrome as a first-generation Puerto Rican while Kira, his daughter, desperately needs to deepen the relationship with her past. Little do they know that a catastrophic natural disaster will whip Puerto Rican born mother/son duo, Luisa and Jan, right to their doorstep. All together, they will try to figure out what exactly is Puerto Rico...even if they have to rebuild all of it....exactly the way it was...in Florida.
Tuesday, November 5th @8pm
SOMETHING IN THE BALETE TREE
by Ren Dara Santiago
Nicholas takes a one-way ticket from Harlem to Manila, PH in order to find his mother and meet his pen-pal, Miyuki. What he doesn’t know is both women are members of an underground rebellion for the people. In the spirit realm of Kulam, Prince and Eve Angel are trying to figure out what this underworld is all about. A play about monsters, heroes, and what choices make a revolution.
Wednesday, November 6th @8pm
PARK-E LALEH
by Shayan Lotfi
Park-e Laleh follows Amir – a gay Iranian asylum seeker – from his arrival in London in 2014 through subsequent years in his attempt to ‘settle’.
Friday, November 8th @2pm
BERNARDA'S DAUGHTERS
by Diane Exavier
It’s summer in Flatbush and the Abellard sisters are in the heat of mourning their father, their neighborhood, their lives. Flames in the forms of desire, longing, and family secrets slowly burn in their mother’s house, where it seems there is no one to cool it in this play inspired by Federico García Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba with poetic and literary cues from Kamau Braithwaite, Louise Glück, Mary Ruefle, Toni Morrison, and more.
Friday, November 8th @8pm
THE CUCUY WILL FIND YOU
by Jaymes Sanchez
The Cucuy, in Mexican-American folklore, eats bad children. But what does it mean to be a good child? For a successful 30-something, like REY/REYNA, who has a fraught family history and lives far away from home, the answer is complicated. When the Cucuy shows up and disrupts Rey's life, and the very fabric of reality, Rey must prove that they are a good child. But even if they succeed, the ordeal might still consume them.
