LOS ANGELES: L.A. Theatre Works has announced a 2020-21 digital season, featuring nine plays recorded in-studio. Recordings will be accompanied by bonus features, such as interviews with playwrights, actors, and experts in the field.
The season will begin with Larissa Fast Horse’s The Thanksgiving Play (released Nov. 18), about three “woke,” white theatremakers devising an elementary school Thanksgiving pageant while avoiding cultural appropriation. Rosalind Ayres will direct.
Next up will be Life on Paper (released Dec. 16), by Kenneth Lin, about a forensic economist and a small town actuary who butt heads over the value of a man’s life after a billionaire dies in a plane crash. Ayres will direct.
Following will be Extinction (released Jan. 27, 2021), by Hannie Rayson, which follows a zoologist in Australia who receives funding to save an endangered species from the same company that is threatening its existence. Martin Jarvis will direct this play about combatting man-made climate change and protecting biodiversity.
Chiara Atik’s Bump (released March 10, 2021) will follow. Atik’s comedy takes a look at the miracle of maternity and the true story of Jorge Odón, and the birthing device he invented in his garage. Ayres will direct.
The season will continue with A Weekend with Pablo Picasso (released April 26, 2021), written and performed by Herbert Sigüenza. Based on Picasso’s writings, the play features Sigüenza as the legendary artist as he spends a weekend preparing to deliver six new works to a buyer on Monday morning.
On May 5, 2021, L.A. Theatre Works will release both For Us All, by Jeanne Sakata, and No-No Boy, by Ken Narasaki. For Us All is a world premiere play about the true story of a civil rights lawyer teaming up with a group of young Japanese-American attorneys to overturn the convictions of men who were unjustly sentenced for resisting the Japanese American internment. No-No Boy, an adaptation of the novel by John Okada, follows Ichiro’s return to Seattle and struggle to transition into a post-World War II life.
Next will be Stephen Tobolowsky’s A Good Day at Auschwitz (released June 2, 2021), about the true story of a man who survived three years at Auschwitz and the resilience of the human spirit.
The season will conclude with the world premiere of The Murder on the Links (released June 30, 2021), by Kate McAll and adapted from the novel by Agatha Christie. This murder mystery for detective Hercule Poirot takes him to France, where he arrives to find his client who summoned him dead in a grave on the edge of a golf course.
Founded in 1984, L.A. Theatre Works aims to make theatre widely accessible and affordable. The company’s catalog includes more than 500 recorded plays, making it the largest archive of its kind. Recordings are available on the organization’s website.
