The Alcove
New Play Development Program
Commissioned Plays (2024-2025)
As the world and theatre continue to live in the greatest existential crisis of our time – the climate crisis – we look to playwrights and theatre-makers to think about and reflect upon these times, and to imagine possible futures. All the pieces under commission from the Alcove this season and those supported with leap-of-faith sessions are focused on our planetary emergency.
American Nightmare
by Hassan Abdulrazzak
Dramaturg: Callan McCarthy
In AMERICAN NIGHTMARE, Sam is hoping to buy from Sheik Nabil an instrument to combat hurricanes in the US. His career at the State Department rests on it. But when Sheik Nabil makes an indecent proposal, Sam’s world is turned upside down. How far is he prepared to go to appease the Sheik?
Untitled E-Waste Play
by Lucas Baisch
Dramaturg: Sarah Rose Leonard
Lucas Baisch’s Untitled E-Waste Play charts out the Silicon Valley’s electronics industry by reaching back into California’s timeline of extraction. Through the supernatural and the strange, missionaries, gold miners, farmers and programmers can all rest on the same idea: “history” is forever speculative.
Way More Fun Than Dying in the Apocalypse
by Sunny Drake
Dramaturg: Katarzyna Muller
A pregnant couple bicker about decorating their new apartment, but should they be more concerned that the building is sort of permanently on fire? Probably, but at least the rent is cheaper. What will it take to get their attention before increasingly bizarre things unravel their whole world?
Species: Human
by Georgina Escobar
Dramaturg: Emma Howard
Species:Human examines Douglas Rushkoff’s Present Shock theories with Darwin’s “Origin of the Species.” It is an exploration of obsession, depression, technology, and the absurdity of living in the era of the infinite NOW as related to our disconnect with the more-than-human world. An attempt to loosen our epistemology and exercise humor, Species:Human utilizes a climate lens to switch up, remix, and repurpose Darwin’s writings in a smorgasbord sci-femme about what then’s, what now’s and what if’s.
[CHALK]
by Zac Kline
Dramaturg: Caitriona Shoobridge
A word written on a chalkboard begins to tell the story of two lives intertwined. [CHALK] is a visual play drawn live that explores the lives of two literature professors over an increasingly hot fall in Los Angeles, as their everyday lives of love, loss and parenthood collide with the legacies of Virginia Woolf, Leonard Cohen, the history of psychology and world around them, as they find out what best makes a well lived life.
Untitled
by Alexandra Lin
Hurricane Sandy is about to hit, and NJ Transit conductor David Chung is tasked with ushering the last Northeast Corridor liner to a basin in Hoboken to weather the storm. But when David discovers that the train’s destination is headed for certain disaster, he must go head-to-head with his crew, authority, and mother nature herself in an epic race to save not only one train — but all of NJ Transit.
Hinge Baby
by Tatiana Pandiani and Danny Tejera
Dramaturg: Leo Gonzalez Dominguez
In the near future, as waterfront properties on Miami Beach struggle to literally stay afloat, elder millennial Miranda finally commits to adulting and joins her homeowners association. As she wades through flooded parking lots, hunts down stolen Amazon, and campaigns for a new seawall, she finds herself falling for Danny, the building manager and recent immigrant, fifteen years her junior. HINGE BABY is a climate crisis romantic comedy about surviving rising tides, nosy neighbors, and finding unexpected love in the midst of chaos.
Untitled
by Savannah Reich
Dramaturg: Rory Willats
In 1988, the neighborhood daycare that Savannah Reich attended as a three-year-old was shut down by the Child Protection Agency. All through the late 80s, daycares across the US were being accused of practicing satanic ritual abuse on toddlers- claims that were later proven to be entirely false. In this free-flowing piece of semi-documentary theater, Reich tries to excavate the real truth buried under court documents, faulty memories, and a national moral panic around the idea of who and what is safe for children.
La Kasa Mita’echo
by Arturo Luíz Soria
Deep in the South Florida brush sits “La Kasa Mita’echo” a lush, family-owned permaculture farm where the most menacing of predators isn’t the pesky raccoon, or the occasional gator, but the manicured millionaire mansions surrounding the property on all sides. Leo, an aging campesino with a massive debt, struggles to keep the farm from foreclosure. Unresponsive to potential buyers, including his dilettante son Eric, he puts his faith in Andres, a young Cuban farmhand he hopes will continue his legacy as steward to the land—a spiritual duty in Leo’s eyes. However, Andres might be more enterprising than he anticipated. This loose, bilingual retelling of The Cherry Orchard begs us to reflect upon our relationship to land; to confront our blindness to the impending climate crisis; and to unpack the psychological and spiritual side effects of American capitalism.
Mortal Combat
by Marissa Joyce Stamps
Dramaturg: Malique Guinn
In Mortal Combat, it’s Counselor Training Week, and a sleepaway camp is swarmed with 20somethings ready to make their summer coin. One cabin of trainees finds themselves to be quick besties in the midst of team-building exercises’ forced kumbaya. But once their training ventures out of the safety net of the pristine, state-of-the-art man-made grounds into the real wilderness of the rugged and hostile Mortal Combat [with Lions, Tigers, and Bears, Oh My!], their faux niceties are nowhere to be found and beasts are unleashed.
Untitled
by Andrea Stolowitz
Dramaturg: Sammy Zeisel
By 1979, the world knew nearly everything we understand today about climate change—including how to stop it. From 1979 to 1989 a handful of scientists, politicians, and strategists participated in a campaign to convince the world to take lasting action. They failed. Through interviews and first hand accounts, this new play explores the failures of the past in order to create a better future.
