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Orientation

Orientation

At a corporate retreat in the Catskills, four interns enter a sinister competition. Personalities clash, secrets emerge, and teamwork seems impossible. How far will they go to succeed?
 
The run time is 40 minutes. The reading will be followed by a brief talkback.
 
In this dark comedy, audiences can expect some language and mentions of violence.

Who's Who

Anna Parker (she/her) is a playwright and lyricist from Houston, Texas. She is a 2025 YoungArts Winner with Distinction in Writing (Play or Script). Her comedic short plays have been produced in the Blank Theatre’s Young Playwrights Festival and the CT Short Play Fest, as well as by schools and community theaters across the country. Her songs have been recognized by the NAMT Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge and will be featured in a Showpeople Theatre Collective concert at 54 Below later this August. Anna is a rising sophomore at Yale University, where she majors in English with a concentration in Creative Writing.

Isabella Woodson (she/her) is an Oklahoma based director, producer, and arts administrator. She is a fourth-year student at the University of Oklahoma’s Helmerich School of Drama, specializing in Directing with a minor in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship. Isabella currently serves as a co-artistic director for Co.Arts Theater Co, a nonprofit theatre company based in Norman, Oklahoma, dedicated to uplifting and producing original work. Recent directing credits include The Grown-Ups (University of Oklahoma), Another Beginning (CIA Productions), Birde (Koger New Play Festival). Assisting/Associate credits include: Arcadia (University of Oklahoma, dir Ashley Monroe), Waiting for Lefty (University of Oklahoma, dir Seth Gordon), Oh L’Amour: An Erasure Musical (Tanninger Entertainment, dir Hunter Bird). Website: Isabellawoodson.com 

Meredith Bransford (she/her) is a Houston-based director and actor with a passion for using theatre as a means of creative expression and self-discovery. At University of Houston, Meredith helps bring original, student-written scripts to life and provides opportunities for non-theatre majors to be involved in theatrical works. She is deeply grateful for the support of her family, friends, and the amazing folks in Honors College Theatre at University of Houston.

Lulani Maya (she/her) is so excited to be a part of this stage reading! She is a rising sophomore at Oklahoma City University pursuing her BFA in Acting, where she has appeared in a production of The Children’s Hour (Peggy). She would like to thank her family and friends for always supporting her.

Annelise Cable (she/her) is an ECE Playmakers Intern at Alley Theatre this summer and a junior at Pepperdine University studying Musical Theatre. Alongside her internship this summer, she was seen as Amber Von Tussle in Hairspray at Art Park Players. Other recent credits include Pepperdine’s CONTEMPO Showcase, 9 to 5 the Musical, and the United States premiere of No One is Coming to Save Us.

Sage Stanley (they/he) is a Houston native and a Junior at Stephen F. Austin pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre. Sage graduated from Tomball Highschool, and LSC Tomball with an associate of arts. They are playing the role of Henry.

Federico Gonzalez (he/him) is a rising Sophomore BFA Acting major at Oklahoma City University from Alvin, TX. Recent credits include Daniel’s Husband (Trip), Eurydice (Father), and The Addams Family (Uncle Fester). He would like to thank his family and friends for their endless support, as well as his mentors for their guidance and preparation in his success. THE GREAT WORK CONTINUES!

Meredith Kinzel (she/her) is thrilled to be participating in this staged reading of Orientation! She is an Operations Intern at the Alley and is majoring in Theatre at Boston College. She has been heavily involved in productions throughout her life, most recently Legally Blonde (Serena) and A Christmas Carol (Molly, Hermione). She is so excited to continue her journey and thanks all her friends and family for their love and support.

Karis Klammer (she/her) is a rising senior BFA Theatre for Youth Major at Samford University. Previous credits include: Samford University: Oklahoma! (Farmgirl/Vivian). Wanda’s Visit (Wanda). The Wind in the Willows (Assistant Director). From The Ashes Theatre Company: Eurydice (Costume Designer). Stage Right of Texas: The Little Mermaid (Alana/Dance Ensemble), Beauty and The Beast (Silly Girl Swing/Dance Ensemble). Along with interning at Alley Theatre, Karis also has been a freelance voice teacher this summer working with K-12 students. Karis is forever grateful and give thanks to her friends, family, fellow interns (who have become a true unit this summer!), and all Alley theatre coworkers and supervisors. This is a summer she will never forget!

Cortney Murray (she/her) is the Human Resources Intern at Alley Theatre and a junior at the University of North Texas, where she studies Psychology and Theatre Arts with a concentration in Acting. Recent credits at UNT include The Tempest (Ariel) and The Great God Pan (Stage Manager). With A Cone Man Running Productions, her credits include And Then There Were None (Costume Designer/Stage Manager) and To Kill a Mockingbird (Scout). Cortney is grateful for every opportunity to learn, create, and collaborate with fellow young artists both onstage and behind the scenes.

Ashlynn Nash (she/her) is currently a theatre production student at the University of Houston. Shows she has worked on at UH include both Frankenstein (Light Board Operator) and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Scenery/Props). Outside of UH, Ashlynn has been working as a lighting intern at the Alley. Recently, she has worked on The Girl on the Train (Lighting Intern) and the ECE Conservatory show, Star-Cross’d (Lighting Programmer/Operator).

Willow Hinds (she/her) is a current BFA production student with a focus in lighting design at the University of Houston going into her junior year. Her most recent work has been the recent ECE production, Star Cross’d, where she was the lighting designer for the production. She is incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work with her fellow interns in bringing this show to life! Other recent credits include, 10 Minute Play Festival (UH, Lighting Designer), Frankenstein (UH, Lighting Programmer), Everybody (UH, Lighting Board Operator), 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (UH, Lead Electrician), Breaking The Bands (UH, Lighting Board Operator/Wardrobe Crew), Stupid F**cking Bird (UH, Wardrobe Crew).

Solène Partouche (she/her) is an incoming Junior at Chapman University, studying Entertainment Marketing and Design. She is on the board of Chapman Student Organized Productions as their assistant director of marketing and is spending her summer as the Alley’s marketing intern. She has spent the past two years as CSOP’s prop designer and has worked on production design and marketing for various Chapman student films. She hopes you enjoy the show! Find more of her work here!

Director's Note

New play development is a special process. It is the act of transforming a production from the page to stage, of finding the essence of a story through collaboration. I find such joy in being part of this process at Alley Theatre, an organization with a longstanding commitment of developing new work to Houston audiences. From its earlier days to the creation of the Alley All New Festival, the Alley has recognized its importance and by entrusting the intern cohort to continue this legacy, the Alley has cultivated the next generation of artists willing to put these stories up on their feet.

When I first read Orientation at the beginning of summer with my fellow interns, I was immediately struck by how personal the play felt. At its core, Orientation is about the deep desire to prove ourselves. It asks how far you are willing to go to achieve what you want, and what happens when ambition and insecurities blur the line between right and wrong.

Working as an intern, I found the plot both hilarious and unsettling; an internship orientation gone terribly, terribly wrong. Thankfully, my own experience as an intern at the Alley has been a lot less gruesome than the one depicted in Orientation. Yet there is something extremely resonant in experiencing this play alongside a group of people who all have this innate drive to success. It’s no exaggeration to say the anxieties and aspirations that fuel our characters are not so different from the ones that follow us through our internship. While Orientation amplifies them to a terrifying extreme, its message remains deeply familiar.

It has been a privilege and honor to help bring this story to life with such a talented group of artists. You hope you enjoy Orientation!

-Isabella Woodson

Director of Orientation

Playwright's Note

I wrote Orientation to capture a particular moment in late adolescence. You’ve accomplished your life’s goal of getting into college: now what? Who are you beneath the polished resume-creature on your Common Application? After years spent chasing well-rounded “impressiveness,” you’re beginning to realize that there will never be another admissions committee to tell you you’ve done well. The only objective measure of success appears to be money. And of course you’re still a roiling stew of teenage anxieties and contradictions, and so is everyone else, and here you all are on your own for the first time, learning to live with each other. And don’t forget that these are supposed to be the best years of your life! 

It’s no wonder some people turn out a little sociopathic.

Orientation presents a dark twist on a narrative familiar from stories like The Breakfast Club. Four incongruous social types—the country club prep, the Southern sorority girl, the self-optimization bro, the spoken word poet—arrive at odds with each other. Will they come together and realize they aren’t so different after all? Maybe some values are simply incompatible with corporate competition. Maybe, under enough pressure, any ideology can be twisted to support it.

Developing this play with the Alley’s 2026 intern cohort has been a dream come true. If Orientation suggests that ambitious young professionals only succeed through ruthless self-interest, our collaboration has demonstrated exactly the opposite. I am so grateful for the time and talent every one of these artists has poured into the production process, and I hope our shared creative joy comes through alongside the cynicism of my dark little comedy.

 

-Anna Parker

Playwright

Lighting Design

To me, Orientation felt like summer nights with friends around the fire, but with a dark twist. For the majority of the play, I had an uncertain feeling, as if something was wrong, but I could not quite place it. For my design, I would like a deep blue wash of backlight to get a nighttime feel, while also creating silhouettes, adding to the uneasy, mysterious feeling of the play. For the moments the characters’ schemes are more prevalent, I plan to incorporate a deep red to my design to instill an anxiousness in the audience. As the show continues, the red will become more prominent, up until the final moment. I also plan to incorporate a practical campfire in my design throughout the show, as it is the centerpiece of the show that initially draws the characters together.

For Orientation, I feel that practical lighting fixtures serve the atmosphere well. A practical campfire, strings of LED lightbulbs, and lamp posts such as the ones shown in the design reference photos would all be potential lighting elements that could work to provide a grounded feel to the world of the play and offer a potential lighting designer more creative freedom. When reading through the script, I felt that shades of blues and greens throughout the production would set our location and time and draw potential audiences into the world of the play. I also feel that they would contrast the warmer light given off by the practical lights in the production such as the campfire or the lamps. During certain moments of the play, we would see a shift to include more “modern” or unnatural lighting such as cool whites and this trend would be present throughout the show and become more intense as the show goes on until the ending where our blue and green tones fade out, leaving our cast with the white and soft orange light of the campfire as our final look, before fading out and leaving just the campfire on stage which flickers out for our final blackout.