L.A. Writers' Workshop Festival 2022

Since its inception in 2005, Center Theatre Group has supported a cohort of playwrights to help them author new plays with the L.A. Writers’ Workshop. This year 10 women—Jami Brandli, June Carryl, Penelope Lowder, Lisa Ramirez, Jessica Ko, Pia Shah, Judy Soo Hoo, Delanna Studi, Julie Taiwo Quarles, and Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera—have worked together over the past few months under the guidance of Associate Artistic Director Luis Alfaro to write 10 plays, which will be presented for the first time in front of audience members at the L.A. Writers’ Workshop Festival over the course of two weekends.The works presented for this year’s festival include:

• Jami Brandli’s play The Magician’s Sister follows the story of two sisters, one of whom is a struggling female magician, interspersed with the stories of real, historical female magicians and on-stage magic.
• June Carryl, drawn to the intersections of race, gender, and ethnicity, explores the mind of artist and activist Nina Simone in Girl Blue.
• Penelope Lowder takes on the challenge to decode the human condition with Barbara George. This 90-minute nightmare follows a Crenshaw realtor who needs to figure out how she can stay visible in a community where she is slowly being erased.
• Politics and playwriting intersect in All Fall Down, with Lisa Ramirez’ semi-autobiographical memory play that harkens to larger themes of addiction and internal racism.
• Sifting Through Ashes In A Zen Garden… But That’s Japanese Not Korean, So Never Mind. is Jessica Ko’s fantastical tale about a woman who, upon receiving her grandmother’s ashes in the mail, must contend with the literal ghost of her newly awakened ancestor and ultimately her family’s legacy.
• Pia Shah’s Tear! takes on motherhood, childbirth, marriage, and porn addicts, focusing on giving a voice to what is sometimes taboo to say aloud.
• Working with concepts of memory, grief and loss, Judy Soo Hoo’s What Lies Behind, delves into a woman’s journey to find her lost sister while also caring for her elderly father.
• Cherokee circular storytelling comes to life in Delanna Studi’s ‘I’ is for Invisible, which tackles the stories of the many murdered and missing Indigenous and Native women as well as a new Oklahoma law that has restored reservation jurisdiction to native tribes.
• Inspired by her Nigerian father and her American mother along with the interactions between the West and Africa, Julie Taiwo Quarles’ play Yoj™ is about two couples debating the trademarking of African culture.
• Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera took inspiration from earthquake-prone Los Angeles and her 17 years of teaching high school before getting her PhD with her play. Blind Thrust Fault, is a timely pandemic work when the profession of teaching has become even more challenging today.

The L.A. Writers’ Workshop is made possible with dedicated funding from Warner Bros. Discovery and the National Endowment for the Arts.