The first annual What's the Story? Festival of New Solo Plays, was presented from February 8 through 18, 2007, at the Powerhouse Theatre in Santa Monica. It featured five full-length plays from the workshop, and an evening comprising shorter works by several artists. “It was time,” artistic director Stacie Chaiken says: “There were a bunch of people—most of them writing in the workshop for over a year-who were on the verge of finishing a full-length piece. I figured that if I scheduled a festival would push us all over the edge.”
The February Festival was a panoply of utterly distinct, individual, moving, often hilarious writer-performers, telling their own stories. The pieces were minimally produced, in a black box theatre, where the focus is on bringing the text to life in relationship with an audience. “In solo performance at its best,” Chaiken says, “all we have is the audience. The audience, and beautifully crafted story.”
The next festival will be presented March 28 through April 6, 2008, at the Powerhouse.
Alan Rachins
Ready! Aim! Slit Your Wrists - My Army Story
It's 1962. The war, and the draft are just beginning to impinge on our consciousness. What do you do when all you know is you gotta get out? www.alanrachins.com
Lisa Marie Sandoval
The Yowling & Other Sounds from Highland Park
Gringa turns a corner in East LA, crashes
into God and the guttural cry of her soul
The poet, “trapped in this place with no face,” finds herself—for the first time—at home. www.theyowling.com
Mariel Rodriguez
Poison Apple
Miss November takes on the LAUSD
Christina Johnson
an excerpt from
Hunger Strike - Shrinking makes me bigger
Joseph Valdez
Little Big Joe, the Bug Squasher -
From South Sac to manhood with Tugboat Tito, Cookie Monster, and an Angel
Joseph Valdez transports us to a world we've only visited in our dreams, peopled with bullies and monsters and bugs, and points us towards the way to light.
Gabby Friedenthal
an excerpt from
Motherhood Unplugged
Wom (wife/mom) belts out from the vortex of motherhood.
2007 festival of new solo plays
Anita Byrd
an excerpt from
Suenos del Jardin (Dreams of the Garden) - Memories of a place that is no longer
How do you find your way, when you are torn between two worlds, and neither of them are there to go home to?
Jennifer Louise Pagan
The Shoebox Lounge
This Louisiana girl doesn't drink. She just sips. A lot. Strutting the French Quarter in moldy Ferragamos.
