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The cast of In Your Arms, 2015. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
The cast of In Your Arms, 2015. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
PHOTO EDITORS: Photos for the Globe’s Eighth Annual Powers New Voices Festivalcan be found here.
SAN DIEGO (December 14, 2021) — The Old Globe announced it will present the eighth annual Powers New Voices Festival, a weekend of readings of new American plays by some of the most exciting playwrights writing for the American theatre today. The free festival returns live and in person from January 14 to 16, 2022 in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Globe’s Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. New works to be featured include readings of two Globe-commissioned plays: Crime and Punishment, a Comedyadapted by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen and directed by Greenberg, and Regular by Ngozi Anyanwu and directed by Patricia McGregor. The festival will also present readings of Exotic Deadly: or The MSG Play by Keiko Green and directed by Jesca Prudencio,and The Red and the Black by Keelay Gipson and directed by Steve H. Broadnax III.
The Powers New Voices Festival kicks off with Celebrating Community Voices, an evening of short works created by San Diego playwrights through the Globe’s arts engagement programs CommunityVoicesand coLAB. In collaboration with SoulKiss Theatre, this evening will feature the one-act readings of Game Night by Queen Kandi Cole and directed by Bibi Mama and And We Danced by Miki Vale and directed by Jacole Kitchen. For Celebrating Community Voices, playwrights Ngozi Anyanwu and Liza Jesse Peterson served as mentors to Vale and Cole, respectively.
“It’s a genuine thrill to return to the Powers New Voices Festival live and in person,” said Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. “It’s an even bigger thrill to announce a lineup of plays that celebrate our art form with energy, vision, diversity, and joy. Each of the four plays we will present in readings is fascinating in its own right, and taken together they present a remarkable view of the vitality of today’s American stage. Two of the plays are Globe commissions that we are delighted to hear aloud for the first time. The four works share in common a bracing commitment to the idea that the theatre is a powerful place to examine big questions, from the deeply personal to the most public. They also demonstrate a certain joy in the expressive powers of language onstage, and a sense of how entertaining and vibrant the theatre can be. And they represent a range of voices and perspectives that reflect the Globe’s vision of an inclusive American theatre. It’s an added thrill to see these works alongside great new writing that’s emerging from San Diego–based playwrights who’ve come through the Globe’s arts engagement programming. I’m looking forward to bringing it all to a Globe audience that’s hungry for a glimpse of the new.”
POWERS NEW VOICES FESTIVAL SCHEDULE:
CELEBRATING COMMUNITY VOICES
FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 2022
7:30 p.m.
An evening of two one-act plays
AND WE DANCED
By Miki Vale
Directed by Jacole Kitchen
An exploration of the life and impact of Ruth Ellis, a Black, openly queer woman and LGBTQIA activist from the 1940s who created a safe haven and sustained advocacy for the Queer Black community of Detroit.
GAME NIGHT
By Queen Kandi Cole
Directed by Bibi Mama
A group of friends gather for a night of games but wind up digging into the complexities of their diverse backgrounds and belief structures post-pandemic during a chaotic and hilarious evening of libations and truth-telling.
FESTIVAL SERIES OF NEW AMERICAN PLAY READINGS
SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 2022
4:00 p.m.
EXOTIC DEADLY: OR THE MSG PLAY
By Keiko Green
Directed by Jesca Prudencio
It’s 1999, and Ami is an awkward, Japanese American high schooler whose world comes crashing down with a terrible discovery: her family is responsible for manufacturing MSG, the poison spice getting all the kids hooked! Meanwhile, a cool new girl, Exotic Deadly, arrives from Japan, and she’s not playing by the rules. In this time-traveling adventure, Ami vows to save the world from MSG and realizes what she’s capable of, if she could just get off the ocean floor....
SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 2022
7:30 p.m.
Globe-commissioned play
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, A COMEDY
Adapted by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen
Directed by Gordon Greenberg
Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece of world literature is hilariously reimagined as a 90-minute comic-adventure morality tale, performed by five ridiculously talented actors who play over 50 zany characters, riffing on the novel—and the entirety of Russian literature. The renowned story follows Rodya Raskolnikov, an impoverished student tormented by his own nihilism who becomes a murderer in order to save his family. Believing his humanitarian ends justify the horrific means, he ultimately buckles when his best friend becomes the primary suspect. Set in turn-of-the-century Russia with a decidedly contemporary twist, this is classic literature retold like you’ve never seen it before.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 16, 2022
4:00 p.m.
THE RED AND THE BLACK
By Keelay Gipson
Directed by Steve H. Broadnax III
You know that thing new couples do? Where they invite their other coupled friends to a weekend away to show off their new relationship? This play takes place in the Berkshires during one such weekend. And what was supposed to be a ritualistic coming together of friends spirals into something much different by the weekend’s end. A meditation on the rise of New Black Conservatism, The Red and the Black toys with the notion that all skinfolk ain’t kinfolk.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 16, 2022
7:30 p.m.
Globe-commissioned play
REGULAR
By Ngozi Anyanwu
Directed by Patricia McGregor
Black love. Is it a thing? And if so…. What is it in practice? Seriously… like in real life not in movies? What does it look like Sound like, Smell like across generations Across cultures Do we really want that old thang that our parents had? And by we I mean the Blacks. What if we could explore it like any other ideation of love? What if the way we talked about Black love was just, like ……. Regular?
The Eighth Annual Powers New Voices Festival will take place in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Globe’s Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Tickets to all festival readings require reservations and are free. Reservations for Globe subscribers and donors will be available beginning Friday, December 17, 2021 at 12:00 noon. Subject to availability, reservations for the general public will be available beginning Tuesday, January 11, 2022 at 12:00 noon. Tickets can be reserved by calling the Ticket Services Department at (619) 23-GLOBE (234-5623). A line for standby seating will form 30 minutes before each performance of the Powers New Voices Festival. Based on ticket-holder attendance, those standing in the standby line may be seated. Seating is based on seat availability and is not guaranteed. Latecomers with tickets are also not guaranteed admittance. For more information visit www.TheOldGlobe.org.
The Old Globe continues to prioritize the safety of its audiences, artists, and staff. All patrons who attend the Powers New Voices Festival will be required to either be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and present proof of vaccination, or provide proof of the negative results of a COVID-19 PCR test taken within 72 hours of entering the theatre. For all patrons under the age 5, whose age does not yet permit vaccination, we recommend taking a COVID-19 PCR test before attending the Globe to ensure they are healthy and free of COVID-19. Masks are required at all times while indoors, regardless of testing status or age.
Major funding for the Powers New Voices Festival is provided by the Powers New Works Fund. The Old Globe’s New Voices Play Development Program is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. The Old Globe’s Community Voices program is supported by Subaru of El Cajon and The Ann Davies Fund for Teaching Artists.
Financial support of The Old Globe is provided by The City of San Diego. The Theodor and Audrey Geisel Fund provides leadership support for The Old Globe’s year-round activities.
Bios and photos of all participants can be found at www.TheOldGlobe.org/Press-Room.
The Tony Award–winning The Old Globe is one of the country’s leading professional not-for-profit regional theatres. Now in its 87th year, the Globe is San Diego’s flagship performing arts institution, and it serves a vibrant community with theatre as a public good. Under the leadership of Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein and the Audrey S. Geisel Managing Director Timothy J. Shields, The Old Globe produces a year-round season of 16 productions of classic, contemporary, and new works on its three Balboa Park stages, including its internationally renowned Shakespeare Festival. More than 250,000 people annually attend Globe productions and participate in the theatre’s artistic and arts engagement programs. Its nationally prominent Arts Engagement Department provides an array of participatory programs that make theatre matter to more people in neighborhoods throughout the region. Humanities programs at the Globe and around the city broaden the community’s understanding of theatre art in all its forms. The Globe also boasts a range of new play development programs with professional and community-based writers, as well as the renowned The Old Globe and University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program. Numerous world premieres—such as 2014 Tony Award winner for Best Musical A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Bright Star, The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!—have been developed at The Old Globe and have gone on to highly successful runs on Broadway and at regional theatres across the country.
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