UC4 New Play Slamfest
JUNE 10, 2024 7:30
CORNCHIP
By Elise Wien
Directed by Liz Herron
Featuring:
Allan Wasserman, Carole Goldman,
Naomi Rubin, Brian Graves and Michelle Gillette
“Week after week, Nana, Papa, and their 11-year-old grandkid Ches wait for pickup in the rec room of the local JCC. There, Papa takes a class called Exploring World Cultures Through Dance and Ches goes to swim practice. In the glow of the vending machine, Ches lusts after stuck bags of Bugles, Papa falls in love with his dance instructor Tamir, and Nana struggles to fit into the morphing world around her.”
PLAYWRIGHT:
Elise Wien is a writer who likes to make her plays like cakes – with a frosting of slapstick comedy, a moist inner layer of complex emotional landscape, and a molten core of ethical dilemma (OPEN WIDE). Her plays include Osher & the Infinite Curtain (Jewish Plays Project), OTP (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre), [cowboy face] (Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting), and Craters, or the making of the making of the moon landing (Production, Smith College; Reading, Corkscrew Theater Festival). She’s currently under commission from EST/Sloan to write a musical about the guano trade alongside Billy Recce. MFA, Boston University.
DIRECTOR:
Elizabeth Herron: SAG-AFTRA / EQUITY is an Ovation and LA Weekly Award winning actress,
director and producer. At the Road, February 2024, she directed The Zone of Death for the UC4
SlamFest, this past September 2023, was Assistant Director to Carlyle King for the Fall
Production of “Bisexual Sadness” and in July, directed “ Let Me See Your Beauty” for SPF 14.
She was Executive Producer and Assistant Director to Ken Sawyer: A Woman In Black- at both
The Road + Coronet Theatres: (Ovation and LADCC Awards.) Assistant Director: Backwards in
HighHeels and A Mislaid Heaven. Also, Assistant Director: to Paris Barclay and Ken Sawyer-
One Red Flower at the Rubicon and the Brentwood Theatre. Director at The Summer Playwright
Festival: Stephen Metcalfe’s A World of Their Own and at the Topanga Acting Company, she
has directed multiple One Act Festivals.
As an actor, she has performed in Ovation and LA Weekly Awards productions and has been an
active member of the Road Theatre (25 yrs), The Interact Theatre (22 yrs + served as Board
member for 4), The Rogue Machine (9yrs), two seasons of the Circle X Theatre’s Writer’s
Reading Group and performed in multiple productions at the Valentin Theatre at the Los
Angeles LGBTQ Center. At the Road, SPF festivals, Through the Eye of the Needle (US), The
Lyons, Homefree (NoHo Fringe Festival- Best Play), Pursued by Happiness, A Christmas Carol,
Shove (LA Weekly Nom-ADA Nom -Best Actress) and Angels of Lemnos. At the Actor’s Co-Op
in Rope, The LA LGBTQ: Search for Signs of Intelligent Life- Revisited, The Laramie Project- 10
Years Later, Deathtrap (LA Weekly- Best Revival) at the Interact: The State of the Union, The
Matchmaker, Urinetown ( LA Weekly Award- Best Ensemble), Our Town ( ADA Best Ensemble)
and Marvin’s Room. Films: WILSON with Woody Harrelson and Laura Dern, produced and
acted in AMERICAN CHRISTMAS with Robert Carradine, Tara Reid and John Ashton, TRUE
ADOLESCENTS with Mark Duplass and Melissa Leo, the Short Film ENOUGH ROOM + USC
and AFI student films. She holds her D.D.S from the University of Washington and her MFA from Cal Arts & the FSU Asolo Conservatory. She is ever grateful to and for her husband, Chris, &
daughter, Katie.
JUNE 11, 2024 7:30
goat(man)
By Jen Jarnagin
Directed by Carly DW Bones
Featuring: Mary Chieffo, Madi Goff, Hazel Lozano and Zach Bones
“Rosie surprises Steph with a cute couple’s getaway in the Appalachian mountains, where Steph was raised, but plans change when Steph’s estranged mother dies unexpectedly. Steph’s brother, Dan, crashes the trip to fulfill their mother’s last wish: She wants her two children to spread her ashes. Their tour guide, Goatman, offers Steph and Dan an unusual method for coping with their grief. They can leave all of their problems and sorrow behind for an idyllic life in the mountains. All they have to do is turn into goats”.
PLAYWRIGHT:
Jen Jarnagin (they/them) is a writer, actor, and everything you’ve ever heard about Scorpios. They regularly perform and write for a bimonthly play competition called Serials, volunteer for Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice in their efforts to close Rikers Island, and spend their days adapting werewolf fan fiction into audio dramas. They’re a former member of the Road Theater’s UC4 Writers Group, Primary Stages’ Echoes Writers Group, and Actors Theatre of Louisville’s acting apprenticeship. Select playwriting credits include “Popular Vote” (SERIALS @ the Tank, 2024), “Party in the Breakroom” (7×7, the Tank, 2023), demolition extreme (developmental reading, the Fled Collective, 2022), “Medusa” (Solo Mios, Actors Theatre of Louisville, 2019). They are a graduate of Stella Adler Studio of Acting.
DIRECTOR: