Like most annual events, Boston Court Pasadena is moving its annual new play reading festival into a virtual format so that participants don’t miss anything new while at home during COVID-19.
This festival is free and will feature four new live plays over two different weekends. After the live performance, Boston Court Pasadena readings will not be available.
These readings will be hosted on Boston Court’s new UScreen.tv store. The readings are free, but registration is required.
If you have any questions about how to use Uscreen.tv, please email Boston Court’s Help Desk at helpdesk@bostoncourtpasadena.
On Saturday, November 7, 10 a.m., readings will be from “Vol 1. – A Post Racial America” by McCormick/Durham. McCormick/Durham is the unique relationship between director Rondrell McCormick and playwright Vincent Terrell Durham born over years of friendship, five acclaimed seasons with PlayGround-LA, a monumental YouTube collaboration with Black Women Talking and the upcoming short film, “The Old Saturday.”
The play is a theatrical manifestation of a broken promise. Hattie McDaniel wins an Academy Award in the midst of a stream of vignettes set over a partial arc of American history: young women dare to use a “Whites Only” bathroom; a couple bring their newborn home in the back of an Uber; two parents separated by time mourn the loss of a son, one in the past, one imagined in the future.
At 4 p.m., readings will be from “Iceland/Greenland” by Nicolas Billon, directed by Hannah Wolf. The play explores the intersection of capitalism and climate change on a human scale. Iceland is set against the backdrop of the 2008 banking crisis, as an Estonian Master’s student-turned-escort, a capital-C Capitalist real estate agent, and a recently evicted devout Christian collide in an unexpected and tragic encounter. In Greenland, receding ice levels off the coast have revealed that an area thought to be part of the mainland is actually a separate island.
On Saturday, November 14, readings at 10 a.m. are from “Kingdom of Wonder” by Shayan Lotfi, directed by Jennifer Chang. In the play, strangers from around the world encounter each other over the course of a weekend at a guesthouse in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The lives of guests and hosts intersect, as they struggle with loss and loneliness, leading each of them to a deeper understanding of who they are in this place, at this moment.
At 4 p.m., “Superstitions,” by Emily Zemba, directed by Jenna Worsham, will be featured. The play circles around Grieg, a visitor from a foreign country, who finds a penny on the ground. When he tries to offer it to a stranger sitting near him – it sparks an absurd and frightening conversation about “bad luck.” Superstitions is an unconventional dark comedy about navigating our personal and national terrors and what happens when we believe in the unknown.
To register for these play readings, visit www.bostoncourtpasadena.
