CARLSBAD, CA – New Village Arts announces its third annual New Play Festival, FINAL DRAFT, scheduled for January 10 – 12, 2020. This year’s festival will feature plays by local playwrights Morgan Trant Kinally, Tom Steward, Roy Sekigahama, and Cynthia Ochoa. Selections were decided from an open submission pool of over 250 new plays and musicals and a five-person readership panel.
This year, Steve Smith serves as the Festival Coordinator, and the festival will be sponsored by Pure Project Brewing in anticipation of their upcoming Carlsbad location in 2020, across the street from New Village Arts.
Inaugurated in 2018, FINAL DRAFT spotlights new work from San Diego artists. The festival features four days of events geared towards celebrating and developing new work. In addition to staged reading performances of four new plays, the theatre will also host a roundtable discussion on how
Dramatists Guild Representative Josh Gershick will also host “Playwriting Partners in San Diego” on Sunday January 12 at 12:30pm, featuring Herbert Siguenza, Thelmaa Virata de Castro, Kent Brisby, Aleta Barthell, Tori Rice, Charles Peters, Susan Benninghoff, and Steven Oberman, to discuss the different ways playwrights can develop creative and lucrative partnerships within San Diego and Southern California.
New Village Arts will also host social networking events featuring craft beers, conversations with the playwrights and producers of the festival, and more. For full festival information, visit www.newvillagearts.orgTicket Info:
Tickets are $10 per reading, or $35 for the All-Access pass, which grants a seat at each reading, as well as a tasting flight of Pure Project beers for patrons over 21. The event is open to all ages, but only patrons over 21 will be able to take advantage of the partnership with Pure Project Brewing
Tickets and info are available at www.newvillagearts.org or by calling 760.433.3245
THE PLAYS
The Ghosts from the Pali by Roy Sekigahama Directed by Albert Park Reading: Friday, Jan 10 @ 7:30pm Playwright Roy Sekigahama is sponsored by Dea Hurston The reading of The Ghosts of the Pali is sponsored by Kathy Hagenbach and Randy Pabst About the Play: Dennis, a 12-year old from California, is unhappy about moving to Kaneohe, Hawaii in 1969. Spammy, a local boy tells Dennis his apartment is haunted by a ghost who hates haoles (Caucasians from the mainland). Kimo, Spammy’s older brother, bullies Dennis into believing that the Gods are angry at his family who are disrespectful to Hawaiian beliefs and customs. About the Playwright: Roy Sekigahama began writing in a Playwright Project workshop. His first short play Face the Music won third prize in Scripteaser’s annual Short Play Competition in 2016. His first full-length play, A Desert Rock Garden was chosen for a reading in New Village Arts’ 2019 Final Draft New Play Festival. Subsequently, NVA received a grant from the California State Civil Liberties Program for a full production. Stuck in the Closet won Honorable Mention in Scripteaser’s 2019 annual short play contest and The Purple Swastika was a semi-finalist in the JCC’s annual 5-minute play contest in 2018. Separateland by Cynthia Ochoa Directed by Frankie Alicea-Ford Reading: Saturday, Jan 11 @ 2:00pm Featuring: Daniel Novoa, Natasha Baenisch, Ryan Martinez, Markuz Rodriguez, Melba Novoa About the Play: Far away from their land and separated from their parents and families under the “Zero Tolerance” policy by the current administration, four immigrant children who are being held in a detention facility of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) under in-human and horrific conditions, encounter each other for the first time. Together,
Griselda, Fabio, Mario, and Paco will learn the meaning of resilience, friendship, hope, faith, and the realities of a deplorable, corrupt, and rotten system. About the Playwright: Cynthia is a senior at UCSD, where she is majoring in theatre. Her passion for the arts flourished as an actor, and most recently through playwriting. While at Southwestern College she earned various awards including the Student of Distinction Award for the Theatre Department in 2016, the highest honor available for students. Cynthia’s passion for theatre was also recognized with the Chancellor’s Associates Scholarship in 2018, which allowed her to transfer and continue her career at UCSD. Cynthia was recently nominated by the Theatre department at UCSD to the Fifth Annual Undergraduate Playwrights Workshop at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC for her play “Separateland”. Cynthia is a proud immigrant and believes that art must be a vehicle for social change.
God’s Necklace by Morgan Trant Kinnally Directed by Joy Jones Reading: Saturday, Jan 11 @ 7:30pm Featuring: Joy Yvonne Jones, Kandace Crystal, Sibongile Ngako, Linda Libby, Tyra Carter, Felicia Farley, Veronica Burgess About the Play: Two Nuer women in South Sudan flee Juba after President Kiir’s armed guard begins killing Nuer civilians door-to-door in December 2013. Three years later in Kakuma Refugee Camp, they are chosen for resettlement in San Diego, California. They struggle with culture shock and how to present their traditional Nuer woman marriage to their American volunteer, Roberta. With the help of Roberta, a chainsaw-wielding arborist from Alpine, the women learn the preciousness of love, friendship, and culture. About the Playwright: Morgan Trant Kinnally is a California-based playwright and educator. Her work has been presented by THML/Moxie Arts NYC, Ion Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse Without Walls Festival, Scripps Ranch Theatre’s New Works Studio, Theatre for the New City, For a Better Understanding of Mankind, Midwest Dramatists Conference, and Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris. She is a Eugene O’Neill and Princess Grace Award semifinalist and a finalist in Leah Ryan Emerging Women Writers, Bay Area Playwrights Foundation Festival, and Pride Films & Plays’ LezPlay Contest. Dramatists Guild Member. B.F.A. in Theatre/Acting from NY State University at Buffalo. She teaches English and creative writing at Bayfront Charter High School in Chula Vista, CA.
Live at Folsom Prison by Tom Steward Directed by Ben Yalom Reading: Sunday, Jan 12 @ 2:00pm About the Play: Batshelder and Matlock are inmates at Folsom Prison confined to a cell during the two shows performed at the penitentiary by Johnny Cash on January 10, 1968. Unable to hear the concert on the prison PA system, they pass the time whittling, reminiscing, dreaming about the future, singing, and trying to go to the bathroom. Visits from Cash’s dazed manager Holiff and a sadistic prison guard only complicate their lives further – as does the disappearance and reappearance of their furniture – and they begin to doubt their own identities as the futile, brutal and illogical nature of their situation hits them. About the Playwright: Tom Steward is a writer, actor and producer. His plays have been produced in San Diego County by New Play Café, Lamplighters Theatre, Onstage Playhouse and Theatre Arts West and in New York by Navigators Theatre. Tom wrote and performed the solo show One Man Bond and co-wrote and produced Space Force! for The San Diego International Fringe Festival. He has performed regularly at theatres across San Diego Country, including New Village Arts and Scripps Ranch Theatre. Tom is also the founder of Lonesome Whistle Productions, a theatre company dedicated to developing innovative solo theatre, stage auteurs and new playwriting.
