Under Construction: Everything is Going to Be Okay

JAMI BRANDLI’s plays include Technicolor Life, S.O.E., M-Theory, ¡SOLDADERA!, Sisters Three, Through the Eye of a Needle, Medusa’s Song, O: A Rhapsody in Divorce, and BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) which was named in the 2014 Kilroys List.  Her work has been produced/developed at New Dramatists,  New York Theatre Workshop, Launch Pad, Great Plains Theatre Conference, The Lark, among other venues.

Winner of John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award, Holland New Voices Award, Ashland New Plays Festival and Aurora Theatre Company’s GAP Prize.  Finalist for the 2016 PEN Literary Award for Drama, Playwrights’ Center Core Writer Fellowship, Princess Grace Award and the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference; nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award.  Her short works are published with TCG and Smith & Kraus.

Technicolor Life premiered as part of the 2015 Women’s Voices Theater Festival and received its Australian premiere in 2017. In 2018, BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) received a joint-world premiere with Moxie Theatre (San Diego) and Promethean Theatre (Chicago), ending with Moving Arts’ production at Atwater Village Theatre in Los Angeles (LA Times Critic’s Choice and Ovation Recommended). BLISS will receive it’s next production at Defunkt Theatre (Portland, OR) in early 2020. Through the Eye of a Needle (Stage Raw ‘TOP TEN’ Pick and Ovation Recommended) received its world premiere at The Road Theatre (Los Angeles), March-May 2018.  Sisters Three received its world premiere with The Inkwell Theater (Los Angeles) in December through January 2019.  As a 2019 Humanitas Prize PLAY LA playwright, Jami was commissioned to write her latest play, Visiting Hours. She is represented by the Robert A Freedman Agency and Gramercy Park Entertainment.  Please visit: www.jamibrandli.com

ANN HEARN TOBOLOWSKY (Director): Everything Is Going To Be Okay is the third project Ann has collaborated with playwright Jami Branli.  First she directed Jami’s full length play (a world premiere) Through the Eye of a Needle produced at the Road Theatre in 2018 and several readings of her play Visiting Hours,including for the Road Theatre’s Summer Playwrights Festival 11 in August.  Recent directing credits also include the classic Bus Stop at Theatre 40 and two other world premieres, The Favorite by Joe Correll at Avery Schreiber Playhouse and Forever Bound by Steve Apostolina at Atwater Theatre. Also at the Road Theatre, an Off-Road production of Anatomy of a Hug, multiple readings for The Road’s Word series and the Summer Playwrights Festival readings of Reykjavík, A Shonda, Unbound, The Specials, The Gift and The Night We Bombed Lincoln Towing. Previously at Theatre 40: Holy Days, Driving Miss Daisy, Another Part of the Forest.  For Skylight LIVE zoom readings this summer: short plays by Anna Mathias, All the Lonely People and Get Me to the Zoom On Time.

Ann was directing Scintilla for the Road Theatre and Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help for Theatre 40, both scheduled to open Spring of 2020 when the pandemic descended.  Rehearsals continued via Zoom and are temporarily suspended, with hopes to continue for openings as soon as possible.

Ann is a member of the Artistic Board at The Road Theatre, as well as a member of Beverly Hills Theatre 40 (for 41 years!) Also an actress, she is married to actor/writer/director Stephen Tobolowsky.