Readings

The Word AND Under Construction at the Road

• October 14th

  La Casa del Cuco

  Playwright: Nelson Diaz-Marcano

  Director: Daphnie Sicre

  

  “A disgraced TV talk show host whose once beloved career ended in controversy seeks to reset his life by reopening his family’s historically significant hotel in Puerto Rico with his sister and cousin. But when rumors of hauntings, and deep family wounds stop any momentum for the hotel’s reopening, the once-beloved host questions what sacrifices he must make to reach the next level. Are his sins beyond forgiveness? Is his family beyond repair? Should he have started a podcast instead? Are those dolls really talking?”

   

  Content warning:

  Please note this play depicts graphic violence, gore and gun violence.

  Nelson Diaz-Marcano is a Puerto Rican NYC-based theater maker, advocate, and community leader whose mission is to create work that challenges and builds community. He currently serves as the Literary Director for the Latinx Playwright Circle where he has helped develop over 100 plays in the past four years. His plays have been developed by Ensemble Studio Theatre, Atlantic Theater Company, The Road Theatre Company, Pipeline Theatre Company, Clubbed Thumb, The Lark, Vision Latino Theater Company, The Orchard Project, The William Inge Theatre Festival, Classical Theatre of Harlem, and The Parsnip Ship among others. Select credits include: Las Borinqueñas (Ensemble Studio Theatre) World Classic (Bishop Theatre Arts Center, Pa’Lante Theater) Y Tu Abuela, Where is She? Part 1 (CLATA) The Diplomats (Random Acts Chicago,) Paper Towels (INTAR,) Misfit, America (Pa’Lante Theater) and Revolt! (Vision Latino Theatre Company).

  DR. DAPHNIE SICRE is a multi-hyphenated artist. She is a director-dramaturg-scholar-educator who shares a deep passion for Black and Latinx perspectives in theatre. Daphnie was recently named Co-Artistic Director of Ammunition Theatre in Los Angeles, CA. She has directed for Skylight Theatre, East West Plays, Greenway Court Theatre, Hollywood Fringe (New Musicals Inc), Playwrights’ Arena, Garry Marshall Theatre, The Road Theatre, San Diego Rep/Latinx New Play Festival, The Robey Theatre, The Fountain Theatre, Circle X, The Hollywood Fringe/New Musicals Inc, Austin Latinx New Play Festival, FringeNYC, and many more. This fall, she joined the faculty at UC Riverside. When she is not directing or teaching, you can find her working on dramaturgy or writing theatre scholarship.

   

  CAST:

  MIGUEL/DOÑA BELLA-Leandro Cano
  TAINA- Angela Townsend
  MICHELLE- Emily Jerez
  RAFIN- Geoffrey Rivas
  STAGE DIRECTIONS- Gloria Ines
• October 21st

  COMPOST

  Playwright: Matt Hoverman

  Director: Neel Keller

  COMPOST is a darkly comic fable about a boy, his bloody axe and the magical compost pile that brings plants back to life – and his scary father too. Sometimes it takes a whole lotta RoundUp to heal – and maybe even befriend – the memory of an irredeemable parent.

  COLE: Mark Irvingsen

  BOY: Josey Montana McCoy

  BETTY: Karrie King

  PENELOPE: Gloria Inés

  DEAN: Harvey Ryan

  GUS: Marcelo Tubert

  STAGE DIRECTIONS: Brittany Taylor Visser

  MATT HOVERMAN (playwright)
  Matt Hoverman is an imaginative and funny TV writer and playwright whose groundbreaking work in kid’s animation (Arthur, Curious George, Fancy Nancy, Sofia the First, Firebuds, Batwheels) has been recognized with an Emmy, the Humanitas Prize and the Sentinel Award – as well as Annie, NAMIC and two GLAAD nominations. His grown-up farcical comedies for the theatre (Puck’d: A Middle-Aged Summer Night’s Dream, The Glint, Who You See Here, Thrillsville, In Transit and Christmas Shorts) have been produced/developed by the La Jolla Playhouse, George Street Playhouse, Huntington Stage, The Acting Company, Transport Group, Ojai Playwrights Conference, Edward Albee Foundation – and have been nominated for a Drama Desk Award and won the FringeNYC Best Playwriting Award and the Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival. (Puck’d is also now optioned for Broadway by Sunnyspot Productions.) Also an actor, Matt’s credits include the La Jolla Playhouse, Yale Rep, the Acting Company national tour, Women’s Project, Late Night with Conan O’Brien and many villainous voice-over appearances on cartoons like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Sonic X and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And as a teacher, Matt has midwived hundreds of solo shows in his popular GO-SOLO workshops – including winners of five FringeNYC Best Solo Show Awards, to name just a few. MattHoverman.com

  NEEL KELLER (Director)

  Recent productions include the world premieres of, Kimber Lee’s to the yellow house and different words for the same thing, Dael Orlandersmith’s Until The Flood and Spiritus/Virgil’s Dance, Julia Cho’s Office Hour, Eliza Clark’s Quack, Jennifer Haley’s The Nether, and Lucy Alibar’s Throw Me On The Burnpile and Light Me Up. He has also directed works by Shelia Callaghan, John Guare, David Greig, Tom Babe, Jessica Goldberg and Nicky Silver, and classic plays by Moliere, Tennessee Williams, Moss Hart, Joe Orton and Shakespeare.

  Neel’s productions have been mounted at theaters across the country, including The Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Mark Taper Forum, Kirk Douglas Theater, Goodman Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Long Wharf Theater, Milwaukee Rep, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis,Portland Center Stage, and at theaters in London, Berlin, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Galway.

  He has helped develop new plays with many organizations including, the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Sundance Theatre Lab, Hedgebrook, and The Playwrights Center. He has served on review panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, Los Angeles New Play Project, The Echo Theater, the Kilroys, PEN West and Theatre Communications Group. Neel is an Honors Graduate of Oberlin College and a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and the Directors Guild of America.

   

Summer Playwrights Festival