Readings

The Word at the Road

• May 23rd

  Wake the Body

  Please join us for a staged reading of Matt Ackels’s Wake the Body on Monday, May 23rd at 7:30 PM. This event is open to the public with a suggested donation of $15.

  After an abusive father dies, his three prodigal sons reunite in their Texan town for an all-night vigil. From the back room of a rural church, they must settle their inherited estate—and inherited vices—before they can put the old man to rest for good.

  Featuring: Brian Ibsen, David Meyers, Adam J. Smith, and Christina Marie Won Pat.

  Director: Ann Hearn Tobolowsky

  Playwright: Matt Ackels

  About the Playwright
  Matt Ackels is a Los Angeles-based television writer and playwright. He is currently writing Season 1 of his new thriller Evaporated People for Amazon. Other projects in development include a TV drama (Skydance Media) and a biopic feature (National Lampoon). His screen credits include work for Netflix, NBC, DreamWorks and Bobby Goldstein Productions. His stage credits include seven produced plays—four at Tony Award-winning theatres—which have been touring continuously since 2012. Matt’s work has received awards from the Planet Earth Arts Foundation, the Austin Film Festival, PlayGround LA and elsewhere. He is of Lebanese heritage with an MFA in screenwriting from USC.
• June 6th

  Dead People’s Dishes

  Please join us for a staged reading of Jennie Webb’s Dead People’s Dishes on Monday, June 6th at 7:30 PM. This event is open to the public with a suggested donation of $15.

  A play about what we hang onto, what we let go of and the weight of our losses, Dead People’s Dishes is made up of stories which move through Los Angeles history to look at how we get through things, over and over again.

  Featuring: Autumn Sylve, Amir Levi, Michelle Gillette, Jennifer Finch, Gavin Lee, Ivy Khan, Gloria Ines, Janet Chamberlain

  Director: Margaret Shigeko Starbuck

  Playwright: Jennie Webb

  About the Playwright
  Jennie Webb is an LA-based playwright and dramaturg (she created the new play development program, Seedlings, at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum), with works produced locally by Inkwell Theater, Rogue Machine Theatre, EST/LA, Santa Monica Rep, Virginia Avenue Project, Road Theatre, Theatre of NOTE and La Jolla Playhouse’s WOW Festival as well as in Canada, the UK, India, Iceland, and at numerous colleges/universities. Her plays have been developed by Great Plains Theatre Conferences, The Playwrights’ Center, Moving Arts, Blank Theatre, Playground-LA, Little Black Dress INK, Rogue Artist Ensemble, Protest Plays Project and Road Theatre’s Summer Playwrights Festivals and inaugural Under Construction Playwrights Group. National recognition includes Finalist (O’Neill, City Theatre Short Play Festival) and Semi-Finalist (O’Neill, PlayPenn, Athena Project, Trustus Theatre Festival) nods; she is the recipient of Max K. Lerner Fellowships and a Women in Theatre Red Carpet Award. Member: Playwrights Union, EST/LA, Honor Roll!, Dramatists Guild; co-founder: LA Female Playwrights Initiative (LAFPI). jenniewebbsite.com

• June 20th

  Scintilla

  Please join us for a staged reading of Alessandro Camon’s Scintilla on Monday, June 20th at 7:30 PM. This event is open to the public with a suggested donation of $15.

  Michael and Nora travel to visit his mother Marianne, a reclusive artist who lives at the edge of the woods in California’s Wine Country. As a raging wildfire approaches, Michael must deal with Marianne’s stubborn refusal to leave, and the arrival of two unexpected visitors. The rising tension exposes a complicated family history erupting into a larger question about our very survival on this planet.

  Featuring: Taylor Gilbert, Michael Uribes, David Gianopoulos, Jackie Misaye, and Kris Frost.

  Director: Ann Hearn Tobolowsky

  Playwright: Alessandro Camon

• August 1st

  In Love With Cancer

  

  Graphic Designed by Gwarlingo Studio

  Please join us for a staged reading of Marylou DiPietro’s In Love With Cancer on Monday, August 1st at 7:30 PM. This event is open to the public with a suggested donation of $15.

  Four breast cancer survivors weave their stories together, taking us on a roller coaster ride of emotions ranging from disbelief to acceptance to comic relief to the realization that cancer gave them the strength to deal with what it took away.  Marylou DiPietro’s new play takes on cancer and makes one realize that you have to love, to heal.

  Featuring: Michelle Gillette, Kathy Bell Denton, Cheryl Francis Harrington, and Krishna Smitha.

  Director: Carlyle King

  About the Playwright:

  Marylou DiPietro, of Harrisville, N.H., is an award-winning playwright and poet. Readings and/or productions of her plays have taken place in Boston, New York City, LA, San Francisco, and London. She performed the solo version of In Love with Cancer in the 2019 United Solo Festival in NYC. In 2021 an excerpt from In Love with Cancer, was featured in the Women’s Writes Festival at the Arcola Theatre in London. A monologue from this play appeared in The Best Women’s Stage Monologues of 2021, published by Smith and Kraus.

  This is DiPietro’s third reading at The Road. Her play, Bone on Bone, directed by Mary Lou Belli, featuring Carlyle King and Sam Anderson, went on to open to rave reviews at the New Jersey Repertory Company. Black Butterflies, a play based on the life of Rose Williams, Tennessee Williams sister and muse, directed by Riley Steiner, featuring Frank Collison, Jessie Einstein, Laura Gardner, Kyle Hall, Alex Smith, Tim Wardell, and Jessica Suzanne Wierzba, is currently in development as a feature film with UK producer Amy Banks.

  DiPietro has her master’s degree in Theatre Education from Emerson College. She is a member of the Dramatist Guild and the New Play Exchange.  To learn more, go to:   www.maryloudipietro.com

Summer Playwrights Festival 13

Photo Credit: Alex Portenko

Common Ground

• TBA

  Common Ground Seven: Stories of Transformation

  More info coming soon!