Play Readings

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Check back soon for more updates about ATC's Cafe Bohemia in the 2015-16 Season!

Past Events...

After Picasso by Stephen Wrentmore

Tucson: February 19, 2015 at 6:30pm - Tucson Museum of Art



A conversation about the life and art of Pablo Picasso, told from the perspectives of two of his greatest loves: Dora Maar and Francoise Gilot. 
Octagon by Kristiana Colón

Tucson: December 13, 2014 at 8:30pm - The Temple Lounge
Phoenix: December 14, 2014 at 7:00pm - Herberger Theatre Center, KAX 



*Winner of the 2014 National Latino Playwriting Award*

Against the backdrop of a last-minute poetry slam competition, eight young poets traverse the stage and the tightropes of their braided desires. With three minutes to sway the judges, they must decide which is more important: the points or the poetry, the privilege of free speech and expression or the celebrity that comes along. Octagon infuses theatre with poetry slam in a way that’s never been seen, ripping open the clichés of the open mic while asking the cost of the spectacle of ripping open our wounds.

Kristiana Rae Colón is a Chicago-based poet, playwright, actor and educator.  Also an Ensemble member at Teatro Luna, Ms. Colon toured the United Kingdom for two months in 2013 with her collection of poems, promised instruments, published by Northwestern University Press. In the fall of 2012, she opened her one-woman show, Cry Wolf, in Chicago while her play, but I cd only whisper, had its world premiere at London’s Arcola Theater. She appeared on Season 5 of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam.


Catapult by Natasha Smith

Tucson: November 22, 2014 at 8:00pm – The Temple Lounge 
Phoenix: November 23, 2014 at 7:00pm – Herberger Theater Center, KAX Stage


Catapult poses Smith’s perspective about navigating the politics of campus life for Leslie, whose sense of self and security begin to unravel when her best friend’s boyfriend crosses a line. Trust between friends quickly evaporates as people and institutions scramble to deflect, protect or forget.

Since joining Arizona Theatre Company as the Artistic Intern in 2013, Natasha has had an active role in the literary and education departments. This summer, she joined the Summer on Stage team to teach playwriting to high school students. She graduated from Amherst College in 2011 with a dual degree in Theatre/Dance and English. Her thesis production, In Her Place, won the Denis Johnston Playwriting Award from Smith College. She has also worked with Horizon Theatre and the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta.


Archipelago by Caridad Svich

Tucson: October 11, 2014 at 8:00pm – The Temple Lounge 
Phoenix: October 12, 2014 at 7:00pm – Herberger Theater Center, KAX Stage

A work of linguistic beauty and eloquence, Archipelago introduces a transient world, both a part of our existence and somehow separate from it, that defies description in its quest to explore why, ultimately, we do what we do.  In a place that may be here or might not exist, in an age that may be now or might be yet to come, Caridad Svich sculpts a tale of love, of time, of poetry, and of the imagination from which her characters construct, deconstruct, and reshape a world for an audience to absorb, to reflect, and reassemble.  

Playwright Caridad Svich has received the National Latino Playwriting Award twice. Other awards include the 2012 OBIE for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, 2012 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, and the 2011 American Theatre Critics Association Primus Prize. Among her major works are Archipelago, 12 Ophelias, Iphigenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart (a rave fable), Alchemy of Desire/Dead-Mans' Blues, and The House of the Spirits (based on the Isabel Allende novel).  Her plays and translations have been produced across the US and abroad at diverse venues including Borderlands Theater, Cincinnati Playhouse, Denver Center Theatre, Mixed Blood, 7 Stages, 59E59, Repertorio Espanol, Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Teatro Mori (Chile).  She is alumna playwright of New Dramatists, founder of NoPassport theatre alliance and press, associate editor of Contemporary Theatre Review for Routledge, UK and Drama Editor of Asymptote literary journal.  She is published by TCG, Smith & Kraus, Backstage, Playscripts, Broadway Play Publishing, Eyecorner Press, Manchester University Press, StageReads and more.  Visit her at http://www.caridadsvich.com

Albatross written and conceived by Matthew Spangler and Benjamin Evett

Originally commissioned by Michael Seiden.
Adapted from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Saturday, April 12, 2014 @ The Temple Lounge, The Temple of Music and Art
9:30pm

Sunday, April 13, 2014 @ Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center
147 E. Adams St, Phoenix, AZ 85004
7:00pm


Albatross brings Samuel Taylor Coleridge's immortal poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to life as a tour-de-force solo performance piece. It blends the vivid language of the poem with original material that unveils the history of the fated Mariner and his life on the high seas in the 1720s. The immortal Mariner is doomed for all eternity to re-tell the harrowing tale of his tragic sea voyage to "those who need to hear it". Complete with privateer battles, tempests, icebergs, and the thoughtless killing of a majestic bird, the Mariner's tale leads him and us into a mystical world of sin, expiation, horror and wonder. The play explores the interconnectedness of all living things, and the necessity for us to be mindful of our actions and their consequences.  

Playwright Matthew Spangler’s plays have been produced by theatres across the country and internationally including Arizona Theatre Company, San Jose Repertory Theatre, Cleveland Play House, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Liverpool Playhouse, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the Avignon Theatre Festival, among others. .  He holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an M.Phil in Theatre from Trinity College in Dublin, and a B.S. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University.  Mr. Spangler is currently an Associate Professor of Performance Studies at San Jose State University in California.


Playwright and performer Benjamin Evett returns to the ATC stage after appearing in Freud’s Last Session and God of Carnage.  Mr. Evett is the founding artistic director of the Actors’ Shakespeare Project in Boston where he performed Hamlet, Coriolanus, Petruchio, Edmund, and Caliban.  At the New Repertory Theatre, he performed in Cherry Docs (Danny), Opus (Dorian), and Quills (Coulmier), among others.  He was a member of the Resident Company at American Repertory Theater from 1993 to 2003, where he performed in over 50 productions including Waiting for Godot (Lucky), Phaedra (Hippolyte), The Tempest (Ariel), The Bacchae (Pentheus), and Six Characters in Search of an Author (The Son).  He has also performed at Huntington Theatre, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Hartford Stage, Missouri Repertory Theatre, Virginia Stage Company, Great Lakes Theater Festival, Cleveland Play House, and others.  Internationally, he has performed at La Biennale di Venezia, the Festival d’Automne in Paris, Taiwan’s National Theatre, and the Moscow Art Theatre.

 Albatross


Samsara by Lauren Yee
Saturday, March 8, 2014 @ The Temple Lounge, The Temple of Music and Art
9:30pm

Sunday, March 9, 2014 @ Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center
147 E. Adams St, Phoenix, AZ 85004
7:00pm

Katie and Craig are having a baby… with a surrogate… who lives in India. A month before the baby’s due date, Craig reluctantly travels to the subcontinent, where he meets Suraiya, their young, less-than-thrilled surrogate. As all three “parents” anxiously wait for the baby to be born, flights of fancy attack them from all sides, in the form of an unctuous Frenchman and a smart-mouthed fetus. A whimsical take on modern day colonialism.
Lauren Yee’s work explores the line between humor and heartbreak to create wildly theatrical plays. Credits include Ching Chong Chinaman (Pan Asian Rep, Mu Performing Arts, SIS Productions); Crevice (Impact Theatre); The Hatmaker's Wife (Playwrights Realm, The Hub, Moxie Theatre, AlterTheater, PlayPenn); Hookman (Company One workshop); in a word (Hangar and Williamstown workshops); Samsara (O'Neill Conference, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Victory Gardens' IGNITION Festival); and The Tiger Among Us (MAP Fund grant, Mu Performing Arts). Lauren’s plays have been also developed at Lincoln Center Theatre/LCT3, The Magic Theatre, The Public Theater, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Aurora Theatre, Kitchen Dog Theatre, and Orlando Shakespeare Festival. She has been a Dramatists Guild fellow, a MacDowell fellow, and a Public Theater EWG member. She was a finalist for the Jerome, the PONY, the Princess Grace, and the Wasserstein Prize. Current fellowships include Women’s Project Lab, Ma-Yi Writers' Lab, Second Stage playwright-in-residence, Playwrights Realm Page One resident playwright, and Playwrights' Center Core Writer. Current commissions: Goodman Theatre, Lincoln Center/LCT3, Mixed Blood, and Encore Theatre (supported by the Gerbode Foundation).  She holds a BA from Yale and an MFA from UCSD. www.laurenyee.com

 Samsara

Los Matadores by Silvia Gonzales S.
Saturday, December 7, 2013 @ The Temple Lounge, The Temple of Music and Art
9:30pm

Sunday, December 8, 2013 @ Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center
147 E. Adams St, Phoenix, AZ 85004
7:00pm

Finalist for ATC’s 2012 National Latino Playwriting Award

A broken, aging bullfighter buys a painting from a blind man and from the oils a flamenco dancer and guitar player emerge to sing and dance for him. A boarding house maid appears to be educated in the art of bullfighting and passes him her talents and the confidence to face the bull, but his success turns to grief when he discovers at whose expense he triumphed.

Silvia Gonzales S. began her playwriting in Arizona, after acting in numerous Yuma Community Theater productions.  Her play El Vagon/Boxcar was a National Winner of VOCES at Repertorio Espanol (NYC). Subsequently, it was produced by Phoenix’s Teatro Bravo with Borderlands Theater.  Spindrift Theater in San Francisco produced the play and members remounted the play and named their new theater El Vagon Theater after the play. Theater for Young Folk at Arizona State University produced Alicia in Wonder Tierra (Or I Can’t Eat Goat Head) directed by Pam Sterling. The play was also produced by Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Coterie, Cara Mia Theatre Company with The Dallas Children's Theater, Utah State Theater, and Teatro Humildad.  Alicia was a Kennedy Center New Voices/New Vision participant, and Silvia garnished a commission from John F. Kennedy Center and the Oregon Commission on the Arts.
 Cafe Bohemia


Spark by Caridad Svich
Saturday, October 12, 2013 @ The Temple Lounge, The Temple of Music and Art
9:00pm

Sunday, October 13, 2013 @ Arizona Latino Arts and Cultural Center
147 E. Adams St, Phoenix, AZ 85004
7:00pm


Co-Winner of ATC’s 2013 National Latino Playwriting Award

Spark is a play about three sisters living in the US, caught in the mess of a recent war’s aftermath. It is about what happens when soldiers come home, when women of little economic means must find a way to make do and carry on, and the strength, ultimately, of family. A contemporary US story of faith, love, war, trauma, and a bit of healing.

Playwright Caridad Svich has received the National Latino Playwriting Award twice. Other awards include the 2012 OBIE for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, 2012 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, and the 2011 American Theatre Critics Association Primus Prize. Among her major works are Archipelago, 12 Ophelias, Iphigenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart (a rave fable), Alchemy of Desire/Dead-Mans' Blues, and The House of the Spirits (based on the Isabel Allende novel).  Her plays and translations have been produced across the US and abroad at diverse venues including Borderlands Theater, Cincinnati Playhouse, Denver Center Theatre, Mixed Blood, 7 Stages, 59E59, Repertorio Espanol, Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Teatro Mori (Chile).  She is alumna playwright of New Dramatists, founder of NoPassport theatre alliance and press, associate editor of Contemporary Theatre Review for Routledge, UK and Drama Editor of Asymptote literary journal.  She is published by TCG, Smith & Kraus, Backstage, Playscripts, Broadway Play Publishing, Eyecorner Press, Manchester University Press, StageReads and more.  This season, In the Time of the Butterflies (based on the Julia Alvarez novel) receives its English language premiere at San Diego Repertory Theatre, Carthage is work-shopped with Signdance Collective International. and she is developing a new piece with DC-based ensemble force/collision. Visit her at http://www.caridadsvich.com.
 Cafe Bohemia




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