Under Construction From Page to Stage
NEW PROGRAM: From Page to Stage
Experience the Creative Process Firsthand!
Sit in on a live workshop session with two of our talented playwrights from our Under Construction program, Rachel Borders and Chelsea Sutton, and attend a staged reading of the brand-new works created during the process. Discover how ideas evolve from page to stage—and witness the power of collaboration in action. Be there for the moment theatre is made.
I’ll Be Your Villain
by Chelsea Sutton
Directed by Carly DW Bones
Workshop:
The Week of Feb 26th,
March 9th, & March 10th
Performance:
Wednesday March 11th, 7:30p
Bennett wants to tell you a story. A story about how she became a villain. No. How they cast her as the bad guy without her consent. The story really begins with a mask of a bird and a friendship betrayed, but it ends today, when Bennett’s aunt dies in the garden of a haunted house, where every night you can hear the fireworks from the theme park down the road. Bennett didn’t audition for the villain, but if the costume fits… I’ll Be Your Villain is a new dark comedy about grief, betrayal, and losing the arc of your own story.
Chelsea Sutton is a writer and director based in Los Angeles. She’s a PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow, a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop, a Humanitas Play LA award-winner, and she co-wrote the Emmy-nominated Welcome to the Blumhouse Live, an interactive film event for Blumhouse/Amazon. Her play Wood Boy Dog Fish, produced by Rogue Artists Ensemble, was nominated for five Ovation Awards and appeared in the inaugural season at the Garry Marshall Theatre. She has received fellowships from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation and the Sewanee Writers Conference, and her plays have been finalists for the Woodward/Newman Award, the Reva Shiner Comedy Award, Stanley Drama Award, UNIMA Writers Award, and the O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference. Her short fiction has appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Apex Magazine, CRAFT Literary, F(r)iction Magazine, Diabolical Plots, and Bourbon Penn, among others, and was featured on the first season of It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton. She is the author of the flash fiction chapbook Only Animals and her debut novella, Krackle’s Last Movie, is forthcoming in 2026 from Split/Lip Press. She recently co-created the holiday horror advent calendar podcast, Long Winter Nights. Chelsea serves as Interim Artistic Director of Rogue Artists Ensemble and holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts from UC Riverside. chelsea.r.sutton.Carly DW Bones is a theatre director, intimacy coordinator/director, sex educator, facilitator and thespomancer. They work at the intersections of performance, ritual, sexuality, gender, community, and trauma-sensitivity. Most recently she directed and co-developed the world premiere of The Aaron Play at The Independent Shakespeare Co. co-produced by Coin & Ghost this fall. Carly created and directed at the feminist theatre ensemble, The Illyrian Players, from 2011-2019, and has also directed and supported new work development at: Coin & Ghost, The Echo, EST LA, Independent Shakespeare Co, Inkwell Theater, Hollywood Fringe Festival, Kayenta Center for the Arts, The Road, Rogue Artists Ensemble, Rogue Machine, Sorority, The Vagrancy and more. Carly is a freelance intimacy professional in the Los Angeles area, including recently for Jesus Christ Superstar at The Hollywood Bowl. They do do intimacy choreography for professional theatre companies (A Noise Within, Antaeus, Boston Court, Coeurage, Coin & Ghost, East West Players, EST LA, Ghost Road, Greenway Court, Hero Theatre, IAMA, Moving Arts, The Road, Rogue Machine, Skylight, Son of Semele, South Coast Rep, StarKid), for university theatre programs (UCLA, UCR, USC, CSULA, CSULB, Pomona College, Emerson LA, Occidental College, Cal Lutheran University), and for indie films (Double Date, Hypochondriac, Mind Games, Omi, Serpentine Pink, Next of Kin). Connect: linktr.ee/thespomancer & carlydwbones@gmail.com & www.thespomancer.com
The Death Doula
by Rachel Borders
REHEARSAL SCHEDULE
Wednesday 4/22: 1-5 pm PST (Readthrough & Discussion)
Monday 4/27: 5 – 9 pm PST
Tuesday 4/28: 5 – 9 pm PST
Wednesday 4/29: 2-6 pm & then the show at 7:30
DEATH DOULA – A family is surprised to learn their patriarch is dying and even more surprised to find he’s hired a Death Doula to assist them through the transition. A dark comedy about death, inheritance, and the decisions that define our legacies.
Off-Broadway: Made by God (World Premiere, Irish Repertory Theatre), Cold War Choir Practice (Asst. Director, MTC, Clubbed Thumb, Page 73), We Are Not Well (NYU Tisch/Clifford Odetts Commission), Anatomy of a Suicide (NYU Tisch/Strasberg)
International: Venus in Fur (Rough Magic Theatre Company, Project Arts Centre), Brambles (Dublin Fringe Festival), We Can’t Have Monkeys in the House (The Peacock at The Abbey, National Theatre of Ireland), Beside the Sea (Composed by Ian Wilson, Irish Tour) Disconnected (The New Theatre/Smock Alley Theatre), Each Day Dies with Sleep (The Lir), Tribes (Assc. Director, The Gate), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Assc. Director, Rough Magic/Kilkenny Arts Festival), Unwoman III (Assc. Director, The Rabble, Dublin Fringe Festival).
Regional: tiny father (World Premiere, Assc. Dir, Chautauqua Theatre Company), Ironbound (Assc. Dir, Geffen Playhouse).
Artistic Association and Leadership: Chautauqua Theatre Company Directing Fellow, Lincoln Center Director’s Lab West, Prague Quadrenial, Dublin Theatre Festival Artistic Associate, Next Stage Participant (DTF), PlayGround-NY Company Member, SEEDS Resident Director at Rough Magic Theatre Company, Contemporary Artist-in-Residence at The National Gallery of Ireland.
Developed new work with Ensemble Studio Theatre, IAMA, Clubbed Thumb, The Chain, TheaterLab (NYC), SparkFest, and The Rat.
Education: BFA NYU Tisch, MFA The Lir, National Academy of Dramatic Art, Trinity College Dublin.