Pacific Playwrights Festival brings new works to SCR

Young Chang

From a farm in South Wales to a prep school in South Africa, from a

shabby stage graced by a theater-hopeful named William Shakespeare to a

stop at Costa Mesa’s Noguchi Garden, this year’s Pacific Playwrights

Festival is as varied in subject as it is in locale.

With 10 productions, more than eight script readings and a

collaboration production by five Latino writers for SCR’s Hispanic

Playwright’s Project, playgoers and play-writers will gather at the

Repertory through July 1 to see as well as be seen.

“What we hope to establish is that the work we’re doing here is really

quality,” said Jerry Patch, project director for the festival. “That some

of the best new plays in the country are being seen here every year.”

Patch added that part of the goal is to have other theaters pick up

original commissioned pieces from SCR and produce them as part of their

season.

He is especially confident of this year’s shows.

“I think it’s perhaps the strongest group of plays that we’ve had

since we started the festival,” Patch said.

Begun in 1998, some of the past commissioned pieces from the festival

have since gone on to premiere at SCR’s Mainstage and Second Stage. This

year’s festival incorporates the 16th annual Hispanic Playwright’s

Project, designed to further writers of Latino ancestry.

Their collaboration piece, “California Scenarios,” is one of the

festival’s newest features.

Set in Costa Mesa’s Noguchi Garden and penned by five Latino writers,

the series of short plays were written to celebrate California’s deserts,

waterways, pine forests and grassy hills.

Writers Luis Alfaro, Joann Fari’as, Anne Garci’a-Romero, Jose Cruz

Gonzales and Octavio Solis teamed up for a story themed, unintentionally

almost, with the idea of home.

“Of finding a place that is home, of connecting to a place that feels

like home,” Patch said.

Jennifer Kiger, associate director of the festival and literary

manager for the Repertory, said each playwright was brought to the garden

and asked to record pretty much whatever inspiration they came up with.

“What we ended up with was this amazing collection of very distinct

voices that all come together in this space,” Kiger said. “This is the

first time we’ve attempted anything like the “California Scenario.”

The Pacific Playwrights Festival’s lineup also features Amy Freed’s

“The Beard of Avon,” Lucinda Coxon’s “Nostalgia” and readings of works

including “Sweaty Palms,” “Hold Please” and “The Falls.”

“All the plays are different from one another and I’m very

enthusiastic about all of them,” Patch said. “I don’t think there’s any

play I wouldn’t trot out to whoever was interested.”

FYI

Tickets to the festival are $8-$18. For information on dates and

times, call (714) 708-5555 or go to o7 https://www.scr.org.

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