Next summer, a new musical, "Five & Dime" will premiere at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. This month, Bay Area theater fans can get a close-up look at the show in the late stages of its gestation.
Sort of like an ultrasound screening, though that's a sub-optimal parallel, given that Shakina, one of piece's co-writers, who will also play one of its leading roles, is transgender.
"I hope that people from across the whole trans and queer community will show up to support this show and this story," the playwright said in a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter.
"Five & Dime" — an adaptation of "Back to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean," a film and play both directed by Robert Altman — is one of four scripts that will be presented in staged readings followed by audience talkbacks later this month in TheatreWorks' 21st Annual New Works Festival at Palo Alto's Lucie Stern Theatre. Three of the four have queer themes and queer playwrights.
Incubation
The development of new plays and the cultivation of emerging playwrights are touchstones of the Bay Area theater scene. In addition to the New Works Festival, which has helped usher shows by Steven Schwartz, Marsha Norman, and Duncan Sheik into the world, development showcases are regularly presented by the Bay Area Playwright's Foundation, Magic Theatre, PlayGround and other organizations.
Most plays go through many revisions before full productions are ever (if ever) produced. Staged readings like those at the New Works Festival can provide work with exposure to potential producers while offering playwrights the opportunity to see their work through the eyes of professional actors and directors, not to mention dedicated theater lovers whose feedback is essential as a script goes through many drafts.
Change is good
"I always like to ask the audiences at these readings what they think they'd remember most from the play a week after seeing it," said queer playwright Jordan Ramirez Puckett in a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter about "A Driving Beat," their play in the New Works Festival.
"Knowing if there are particular scenes or lines of dialogue they've keyed in on is really helpful. I also think it's important to hear if audience members are confused by anything. There are a couple of changes that this play has gone through because of feedback I received at earlier readings that made me realize I needed to clarify certain aspects of the script."
"A Driving Beat" tells the story of a 14-year-old boy and his mother on a cross-country road trip, during which the action regularly shifts between the present and memory. Ramirez Puckett has made refinements to ensure that the timeframe of any given moment is clear to audience members.
Ramirez Puckett knows that despite the Palo Alto reading coming "late in the development of this play, almost seven years in" more changes will occur.
"I'm feeling like there needs to be some expansion at the end of the play. Right now, the characters get to the end of their trip and the play ends, too. I think there's a little bit of room to deal with some of what happens after they arrive."
Ramirez Puckett has been working on these additions in the weeks prior to coming to the festival from her current home in New York (She studied playwriting at Julliard after growing up in the South Bay).
"We have two readings a week apart at the festival. So, I'll see how the new material lands the first time, and then probably make some more adjustments before the second reading. If they wanted to, people could come to both and see how things change."
The evolution will continue until the play receives its premiere production at the Flint Repertory Theatre in Michigan.
Writing recognized
"There's a surprise at the very last moment," said Vichet Chum, speaking to the Bay Area Reporter about his script, "Liebling," also featured in the New Works Festival. The play's story concerns the relationship of two boyfriends with very different senses of themselves within the Asian-American diaspora.
"One of the things that's important to me in the readings is to see whether it makes sense to the audience. In past readings there have been people who didn't pick up on it, or who asked me to explain what was going on."
Chum, who was raised outside of Dallas by Cambodian immigrant parents, studied at the Brown University/Trinity Theatre drama program. After graduation, he moved to New York, planning to pursue an acting career, but quickly discovered that "the audition opportunities I was getting as a queer Asian man were just so diminishing. I felt like this was a problem I wanted to be part of solving, so I shifted my focus more to writing."
Overlapping identities
"In conversations with audiences at earlier readings of 'Liebling,' I've wanted to make sure that I'd written these queer Asian characters as compelling people who the audience can root for as a couple but also understand as two very different individuals. One is Cambodian American, and the other is bi-racial, Chinese American and German."
In discussing "5 & Dime," Shakina said she hopes that the show, which she co-created with Ashley Robinson and Dan Gillespie Sells, registers as "not just a trans story."
"It's really about sisterhood that crosses between trans and cis women. I want to set a model for how we can better understand and show up for each other as sisters in the communities where we live."
"5 & Dime," "A Different Beat," and "Liebling" will each be presented twice over the course of the festival. The second staged reading of each will take place over the course of a single day, Saturday, August 17, providing local theatre afficionados the opportunity to participate in the development of all three shows as they progress toward their world premieres.
TheatreWorks' New Works Festival, August 9-18. $25-$65. Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Rd., Palo Alto. www.theatreworks.org
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