Over the next couple weeks, theater lovers will have the opportunity to look under the hood and see some of the work that goes into a stage production as two of the region’s major companies shine the spotlight on new plays.
This Sunday, for the first time since the pandemic disrupted the cultural calendar, City Lights Theater Company returns to live performances for its annual Lights Up! festival of new plays. The daylong event will feature readings of two new plays by South Bay talents as well as a Maker Fair featuring work by local creators.
Since 2020, “Lights Up!” has been produced as a podcast. But at 2pm on Aug. 4, the annual festival of new plays will be presented on stage at City Lights, recapturing the excitement of live theater.
“The podcast format was a lot of fun and allowed us to focus on the language in these new plays, which the playwrights are still developing,” City Lights Executive Artistic Director Lisa Mallette said in a release about the event. “But there’s nothing like gathering in person to create live theater: something we’ll never take for granted again.”
The curtain will go up on a dramatic reading of a new adaptation of a classic Sherlock Holmes mystery penned by City Lights sound designer/composer George Psarras.
Based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter, the play features Psarras in the title role as the Greek Interpreter. Mark Anderson Phillips, who directs the play, reads the role of Sherlock. Also participating are Jeffrey Bracco, Tom Gough, April Culver, Sam Ricci, Dan Cardenas, Keenan Flagg, Maria Marquis and Max Tachis.
Tachis, a regular with City Lights, wrote the second play on the program: a new adaptation of Jules Verne’s Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which will be presented at 5pm. Kit Wilder, who’s currently taking on the role of Riff Raff in the City Lights production of Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show, directs the reading, which features Tom Gough, Simar Kaur, Sam Ricci, April Culver, Dan Cardenas, Keenan Flagg, Deb Anderson, Stephanie Renee Foisy, Kimberly Scofield and Maria Marquis.
An hour before each performance, the Maker Fair will be open, featuring four artists associated with City Lights. Executive Artistic Director Lisa Mallette will show hand-painted hostess gifts and Marketing Director Rebecca Wallace brings out her collage art. And two actors—Keenan Flagg and Rachel Bakker—return to the festival to show their ceramic artwork.
Lights Up! takes place at City Lights Theater, 529 S. Second St., San Jose. Festival admission is Pay What You Can (suggested donation is $20). For Information, visit cltc.org or call 408.295.4200.
A week later, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley launches into its annual New Works Festival, where a quartet of plays will be introduced, beginning Aug. 9.
Working with TheatreWorks Artistic Director Giovanna Sardelli is Jeffrey Lo, who serves as the festival’s artistic producer of this year’s New Works Festival. An up-and-coming Bay Area talent, Lo recently directed TheatreWorks’ production of Tiger Style!
Two musicals and two dramas are on tap for the 2024 New Works Festival. First to hit the stage on Aug. 10 will be Molly Bell’s Hysterical, a one-woman musical exploration of motherhood written by and starring Bay Area writer/actor Molly Bell and directed by Timothy Near.
The other musical, 5 & Dime, bows the next night. The play, based on Ed Graczyk’s Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, was created by Ashley Robinson, Dan Gillespie Sells and Shakina. The reading, directed by Sardelli, is a teaser for the play’s world premiere as part of TheatreWorks’ 2025 season.
Lo directs Liébling, a drama by Vichet Chum in which two American novelists, both haunted by their inherited past in two war-torn countries—Cambodia and Germany—work to salvage their personal lives.
And in A Driving Beat, Bay Area native Jordan Ramirez Puckett traces the voyage of identity and self-discovery experienced by a mother and son on a cross-country road trip.
In addition to the readings, other events include an Aug. 9 keynote address by Bay Area artist Carlos Aguirre, who will discuss his rap adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, and an Aug. 18 conversation with the festival’s playwrights and composers moderated by festival artistic producer Lo.
The festival runs August 9-18, 2024 at the Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Rd., Palo Alto. Festival passes ($65 general) and single event tickets ($25) can be purchased online at theatreworks.org or by calling (650) 463-1960.
