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As part of the Playhouse’s commitment to being a home for artists to develop new plays and musicals, Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley created the DNA New Work Series in 2013.
DNA offers playwrights and directors the opportunity to develop a script by providing rehearsal time, space and resources, culminating in public readings. This process gives audiences a closer look at the play development process, while allowing the Playhouse to develop work and foster relationships with both established and up-and-coming playwrights.
The DNA New Work Series has been a launching pad for numerous projects that have gone on to full productions in future Playhouse seasons, including Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar’s The Who & The What; Chasing the Song, by the Tony Award-winning team of Joe DiPietro and David Bryan (Memphis, Diana); Michael Benjamin Washington’s Blueprints to Freedom; UC San Diego MFA graduate Jeff Augustin’s The Last Tiger in Haiti; Miss You Like Hell, by Pulitzer Prize winner Quiara Alegría Hudes and Erin McKeown; Kill Local, by UC San Diego MFA graduate Mat Smart; What Happens Next, by UC San Diego MFA graduate and faculty member Naomi Iizuka; Melissa Ross’ The Luckiest; Keith Bunin’s The Coast Starlight and this season’s SUMO by Lisa Sanaye Dring.
WEEK 1 NOV 30 – DEC 3
By Zakiya Young
Directed by Jacole Kitchen
Thursday, Nov 30 and Saturday, Dec 2 at 7:00 pm
Rao and Padma Makineni Play Development Center (PDC) at La Jolla Playhouse
Zakiya Young is the poster child for racial reconciliation. She code switches with lightning speed. White sorority? Like, no prob. A Black and Latino church with a white pastor? She’ll praise God in Spanish! Broadway? Is it color blind casting or an all-Black show? Doesn’t matter because this suburban Black girl has mastered the art of being ‘non-threatening.’ But when COVID lockdowns put a spotlight on police killing unarmed Black people, everything she suppressed begins seeping out like an infected wound.
By Miyoko Conley
Directed by Jesca Prudencio
Friday, Dec 1 at 7:00 pm and Sunday, Dec 3 at 3:00 pm
Rao and Padma Makineni Play Development Center (PDC) at La Jolla Playhouse
Set in a future where humans have gone extinct, Human Museum follows a group of robots on Earth that run a museum dedicated to organizing the physical and digital artifacts of human life. On the centenary of human extinction, a sudden radio call upends everything the robots thought they knew about the last days of humanity. Human Museum explores what we will leave behind when we’re gone, and who will carry on our legacy.
Created by Marike Splint
In collaboration with Jonathan Snipes and Stewart Blackwood
Friday, Dec 1 at 3:00 pm, 3:15 pm, 3:30 pm, 3:45 pm, 4:00 pm, 4:15 pm
Sunday Dec 3 at 12:00 pm, 12:15 pm, 12:30 pm, 12:45 pm, 1:00 pm, 1:15 pm, 1:30 pm
S. Mark Taper Foundation Plaza at La Jolla Playhouse
A Without Walls work-in-progress!
Marike Splint’s new piece is a site-specific, immersive soundwalk that uses the environment around La Jolla Playhouse as its canvas. Layered with disarming metaphors, historical details, and personal musings, 59 Acres takes you on a meditation through the physical, cultural and geographical landscapes we inhabit, while searching for the extraordinary in the mundane.
WEEK 2 DEC 5 – DEC 10
Written and Directed by Ayad Akhtar
Thursday, Dec 7 and Saturday, Dec 9 at 7:00 pm
Rao and Padma Makineni Play Development Center (PDC) at La Jolla Playhouse
Good writers borrow, great writers steal. Jacob McNeal is one of the greatest writers, a perpetual candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. McNeal also has an estranged son, a new novel, plenty of old axes to grind, stage 2 liver failure and an unhealthy fascination with Artificial Intelligence. Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar’s new play is a keenly-observed and wickedly smart examination of the inescapable humanity – and increasing inhumanity – of our stories.
By Peter Kim George
Directed by Kat Yen
Friday, Dec 8 at 7:00 pm and Sunday, Dec 10 at 3:00 pm
Rao and Padma Makineni Play Development Center (PDC) at La Jolla Playhouse
We still don’t know how to talk about what happened in Los Angeles on April 29, 1992, and it’s a problem. A group of young actors come together to re-enact a “primal scene” from the Los Angeles unrest in 1992 using elements of group psychotherapy. Why don’t liberals acknowledge American empire? How do the unseen parts of empire structure what is visible? We’re just trying to live. To Red Tendons deals with seething anger turned inward, and a desire for reconciliation.
Created by Braden Abraham and Gordon Hempton
Based on recordings by Gordon Hempton, The Sound Tracker
Directed by Braden Abraham
Tuesday, Dec 5 and Wednesday, Dec 6 at 5:00 pm and 7:00 pm
Seuss 1 Rehearsal Room at La Jolla Playhouse
A Without Walls work-in-progress!
Sound Place Love is a captivating, immersive audio installation about celebrated sound artist Gordon Hempton, known as The Sound Tracker. Gordon spent decades capturing disappearing natural environments across the Earth, using a specialized microphone that emulates human hearing. Distilled from hundreds of hours of personal recordings and interviews, this project shares some of his most beautiful and engaging recordings around the globe and his personal struggle with hearing loss. Be the first audience to experience this moving auditory voyage, exploring how we perceive and appreciate the art of listening.
All DNA readings are general admission seating. Tickets are free and reservations are required.
Tickets are no longer available for DNA 2023. See you next year!
Tickets for this event have been underwritten through the generosity of the Sheri L. Jamieson New Work Development Fund as well as our DNA New Work Series co-sponsors:
Margaret and Tony Acampora
Jendy Dennis Endowment Fund of the JCF
Dean J. Haas
Dwight Hare and Stephanie Bergsma
Judy and Bill Garrett
Kay and Bill Gurtin
Robin and Larry Rusinko
Karen and Jeff Silberman
Greta and Stephen Treadgold
Peggy Ann Wallace
With additional support from Stacy Cromidas and Ruth Gilbert.
If you would like to join with them in supporting new work at the Playhouse, please consider a tax-deductible donation. Gifts of $250 and above receive membership benefits throughout the year, including program recognition and exclusive invitations to join us for special events with theatre artists.
Top banner photo credit: (L-R) Andres Santiago Pina, Ashley Alvarez, Jesse J. Perez and Sandra Ruiz in the 2022 DNA New Work Series reading of DERECHO
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