Playing May 19th-23rd
BLOSSOMING is an annual staged reading series
comprised of new full-length plays developed by
The Vagrancy Playwrights' Group
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Join us in-person
Friday, May 19, Sunday, May 21 & Tuesday, May 23 Lyric Hyperion Theatre 2106 Hyperion Ave Los Angeles, CA 90027 TICKETS: PAY WHAT YOU WANT Click the button to get tickets *Cash and Credit Card also accepted at the door* |
Be inspired by these four original plays and help the plays' development along with post-reading audience and artist talkbacks
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FRIDAY, MAY 19th
5 PM PST: ORTA by Katherine Vondy
directed by Jessie Lee Mills
Moderator: Kari Lee Cartwright
Synopsis: In Northern Italy there is a small town. Next to the town is a lake. On the lake is a tiny island. And on this island, there are absolutely no snakes, dragons, or monsters–thanks to St. Julius, who, according to legend, sailed across the lake on his cloak in the 4th century and banished them.
These days, Orta is known to be a romantic destination for couples in love, but when Kasper and Tajana go there on their honeymoon, some of the banished serpents decide it’s the perfect time to return home. The thing is, the serpents may not be what they seem. And, as it turns out, neither are the newlyweds…
5 PM PST: ORTA by Katherine Vondy
directed by Jessie Lee Mills
Moderator: Kari Lee Cartwright
Synopsis: In Northern Italy there is a small town. Next to the town is a lake. On the lake is a tiny island. And on this island, there are absolutely no snakes, dragons, or monsters–thanks to St. Julius, who, according to legend, sailed across the lake on his cloak in the 4th century and banished them.
These days, Orta is known to be a romantic destination for couples in love, but when Kasper and Tajana go there on their honeymoon, some of the banished serpents decide it’s the perfect time to return home. The thing is, the serpents may not be what they seem. And, as it turns out, neither are the newlyweds…
SUNDAY, MAY 21ST
10AM PST: THE HOLE IN THE SKY by Jennifer Bobiwash
directed by Pastiche Queen
Moderator: Brittney S. Wheeler
Synopsis: The year is 2491, 1000 years after Columbus has discovered America. Humanity is now searching for a new home after destroying the earth. Exiled from the Earth because of its uninhabitability, 10 ships have been launched from different cities around the globe in the hopes of rendezvousing on Planet B-6-12. But now, instead of a boat full of Europeans, this intergalactic ship is carrying the leader of an ancient religious order and one special passenger, someone who is believed to be the last Native American in the Universe. How will this ancient society and once conquered people come together once they land on this new world? Or will they even make it there…
10AM PST: THE HOLE IN THE SKY by Jennifer Bobiwash
directed by Pastiche Queen
Moderator: Brittney S. Wheeler
Synopsis: The year is 2491, 1000 years after Columbus has discovered America. Humanity is now searching for a new home after destroying the earth. Exiled from the Earth because of its uninhabitability, 10 ships have been launched from different cities around the globe in the hopes of rendezvousing on Planet B-6-12. But now, instead of a boat full of Europeans, this intergalactic ship is carrying the leader of an ancient religious order and one special passenger, someone who is believed to be the last Native American in the Universe. How will this ancient society and once conquered people come together once they land on this new world? Or will they even make it there…
SUNDAY, MAY 21ST
1PM PST: TAKING THE EDGE OFF by Natalie Camunas
directed by Rebecca Louisell
Moderator: Brittney S. Wheeler
Synopsis: Taking the Edge Off is the story of Sara, an alcoholic Latinx woman in her 30s, who has a night of binge drinking after learning that her partner has cheated on her. In her drunken stupor, she runs a red light and wakes up in heaven. Well, almost. She is greeted by three intermediary angels who inform her that if she’d like to return to her life, she’s got to take a hard look at how she arrived at this point. Along with their help, Sara must finally deal with a generation’s worth of familial grief, figure out who she is without alcohol, and learn what loving yourself truly feels like.
1PM PST: TAKING THE EDGE OFF by Natalie Camunas
directed by Rebecca Louisell
Moderator: Brittney S. Wheeler
Synopsis: Taking the Edge Off is the story of Sara, an alcoholic Latinx woman in her 30s, who has a night of binge drinking after learning that her partner has cheated on her. In her drunken stupor, she runs a red light and wakes up in heaven. Well, almost. She is greeted by three intermediary angels who inform her that if she’d like to return to her life, she’s got to take a hard look at how she arrived at this point. Along with their help, Sara must finally deal with a generation’s worth of familial grief, figure out who she is without alcohol, and learn what loving yourself truly feels like.
TUESDAY, MAY 23
7 PM PST: THE SARAHS (Сари) by Anna Fox
directed by Dean Grosbard
Moderator: Kari Lee Cartwright
Synopsis: In the year 1919, Sara, a young Jewish woman, works at her family’s bakery in Kyiv, but when the Pogroms happen, the bakery is vandalized and she must flee to New York City where her family establishes a new bakery on the Lower East Side. A little over a hundred years later in 2022, her great granddaughter Sarah is running that very same family bakery, when the landlord raising the rent, pandemic struggles, and someone spray-painting a swastika on the door, force her family to close its doors forever. As Sarah cleans out the bakery, she discovers her great grandmother’s old diary in the wall, and suddenly a new world is unlocked. Feeling determined to embrace her ancestry, and visit the land her great grandmother was once exiled from, she books a plane ticket to Kyiv, when Putin invades and she is no longer able to go. Now she must grapple with her painful family history and identity as a young Jewish Ukrainian woman living in an antisemitic world in ways she never has before. Inspired stylistically by Alice Birch and Caryl Churchill, this play is a time-bendy poetic meditation on ancestry, violence, womanhood, and Jews who’ve been cast out.
7 PM PST: THE SARAHS (Сари) by Anna Fox
directed by Dean Grosbard
Moderator: Kari Lee Cartwright
Synopsis: In the year 1919, Sara, a young Jewish woman, works at her family’s bakery in Kyiv, but when the Pogroms happen, the bakery is vandalized and she must flee to New York City where her family establishes a new bakery on the Lower East Side. A little over a hundred years later in 2022, her great granddaughter Sarah is running that very same family bakery, when the landlord raising the rent, pandemic struggles, and someone spray-painting a swastika on the door, force her family to close its doors forever. As Sarah cleans out the bakery, she discovers her great grandmother’s old diary in the wall, and suddenly a new world is unlocked. Feeling determined to embrace her ancestry, and visit the land her great grandmother was once exiled from, she books a plane ticket to Kyiv, when Putin invades and she is no longer able to go. Now she must grapple with her painful family history and identity as a young Jewish Ukrainian woman living in an antisemitic world in ways she never has before. Inspired stylistically by Alice Birch and Caryl Churchill, this play is a time-bendy poetic meditation on ancestry, violence, womanhood, and Jews who’ve been cast out.
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These readings are made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs & is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.
*The Actor appears through the courtesy of Actors' Equity Association. This production is presented under the auspices of the Actors Equity Los Angeles Membership Company Rule |
