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Alley All New Festival

2023

New plays in development from some of the most exciting voices in contemporary theatre. All readings and workshops are free and open to the public.

Previous shows featured in the Alley All New Festival received world premiere productions at the Alley (Torera, Amerikin) and recently on Broadway (Pictures from Home). Join us the Alley All New Festival and say you saw the next world premiere “way back when…”!

Each performance was followed by a post-show Alley Chat with the artists led by a member of the artistic staff. Alley All New programming is recommended for mature audiences.

Workshop Performance
Instructions for a Séance
Written and Performed by Katie Bender
Workshop Director Lily Wolff
Artistic Consultant Hannah Wolf

This DIY séance hosted by Texas writer/performer Katie Bender (Survivors: An Alamo Play; Alley All New Festival 2020) invites an audience to conjure escape artist Harry Houdini and learn how to escape their own lives. But another presence haunts the edges of the séance — a figure overlooked for far too long, who has things she still wants to say, and dammit, she’s going to get her say. Part magic show and a playful look at one of history’s greatest illusionists, Instructions for a Séance explores the gauntlet that is motherhood, artistic ambition, and escapism.

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Hilary Bettis
Worshop Performance
Untitled Horse Play
By Hilary Bettis
Directed by May Adrales

A love letter to rural girls who are so often invisible. A love letter to the horses who saved our lives and taught us to be women. A love letter to my mom who always did her best, even though I couldn’t see it. A new play by Hilary Bettis (72 miles to go…, 2019 Alley All New Festival and 2021 production).

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Chisa Hutchison
Reading
The Bleeding Class
By Chisa Hutchinson
Directed by Jade King Carroll

Chisa Hutchinson (Amerikin, 2019 Alley All New Festival and 2022 world premiere) returns with another prescient play. There’s a deadly plague out there yet Sugar, a Dominican-American escort from the Bronx, seems immune. When she goes to see Dr. Wesley Pennington, a Black doctor who tries to stay above it all, she is floored to find that her blood might be the key to saving the world. The two move into the hastily built research compound of a pharmaceutical giant and power dynamics change in this timely socio-political thriller written prior to the Covid pandemic.

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Marisela Treviño Orta
Reading
December
By Marisela Treviño Orta
Directed by Marcela Lorca

An unlikely attraction blossoms between poetry professor Carolina and her talented student Benjamin, but Carolina can’t overlook the age difference in good conscience. Spanning twenty years, December tells the story of two Texans connecting over literature and music in Minnesota. This lyrical meditation on love, poetry, and timing is written by Texas playwright Marisela Trevino Orta, best known for The River Bride.

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Anna Ziegler
Reading
The Janeiad
By Anna Ziegler
Directed by Rob Melrose

In The Odyssey, Penelope’s long wait is eventually rewarded when Odysseus returns to Ithaca 20 years after leaving to fight the Trojan War. Will the same be true for Jane in Brooklyn, 20 years after her husband left for work one fateful September morning? A play about longing and hope as well as the myths we tell ourselves in order to get through the day, The Janeiad is a wry contemplation of the power, and slipperiness, of storytelling.

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Early Draft Preview
Afsaneh Aayani & Mark Shanahan

Get to know Afsaneh Aayani, Iranian-born, Houston-based scenic designer, puppet maker, and theater maker as she gives a window into the unique creative process behind The Painter and the Wild Swans. And meet writer/director Mark Shanahan and get a taste of what’s coming to the Alley next: Mark’s new adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which was voted the “Best Crime Novel of all Time” by the British Crime Writers’ Association.

Festival Add-On
The Servant of Two Masters
Translated, Adapted, and Directed by Rob Melrose
From The Original Play in Italian by Carlo Goldini
Directed by Rob Melrose

Identities are mistaken, engagements are broken, and lovers are reunited in this world premiere adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s commedia dell’arte masterpiece. Directed by Rob Melrose, zany schemes and mayhem will have you laughing at and loving our hapless hero.