It's time for the Mark Taper Forum's 14th annual New Works Festival, and in 2001, the Los Angeles company will host new plays from Kia Corthron, Bridget Carpenter, Latino performance group Culture Clash, Lynn Manning and David Greenspan. All readings are staged at the Evidence Room and are free of charge.
Corthron, the author of Seeking the Genesis and Breath, Boom, staged this past spring by Playwrights Horizons, presents her Slide Glide — Slippery Slope Nov. 10 with Valerie Curtis-Newton directing. Neil Pepe helms Susan Smith Blackburn Award winner Carpenter's The Faculty Room Nov. 9. Culture Clash, known for their comic looks at Latino and Chicano life, especially in California, presents Chavez Ravine, directed by Lisa Peterson, Nov. 14 and 18. Actor-playwrights Manning (Weights) and Greenspan (The Home Show Pieces) will be read Nov. 17 and Nov. 3, respectively. Greenspan directs his She Stoops to Comedy while Manning performs The Middle Passage.
Also planned for the festival:
— Nowhere to Run, a new musical by Chris Wells and Fred Cassidy, performed by Christy and the No-No's and directed by Tracy Young, Oct. 31 and Nov. 1
— The Home Life of Polar Bears by Hilly Hicks, Jr. (A Hole in the Dark), directed by Dianah Wynter
— Living Out by Lisa Loomer (The Waiting Room), directed by Neel Keller
— Catwalk Confidential...Memoirs of a Model written and performed by Robyn Peterson, directed by Tony Abatemarco
— Dutch Heart of a Man by Robert Glaudini, directed by Robert Egan
— 93 Acres of Barley by Ain Gordon, directed by Corey Madden
— Torn Between 2 Bitches by Michael Sargent, directed by Egan
— A Year in Van Nuys by Sandra Tsing Loh (Aliens in America), directed by David Schweizer
— Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner by performance artist Luis Alfaro, directed by Michael Garces
Tickets are distributed first come, first served basis one hour before curtain time. For futher information, call (213) 972-7389. — By Christine Ehren