Emerging Playwrights Lab Reading SERIES 2025
JULY 18-27, 2025
ATWATER VILLAGE THEATRE
FREE ADMISSION. Reservations Recommended.
IAMA Theatre Company presents staged readings of six new plays written by members of the company’s 2024-25 Emerging Playwrights Lab. Readings will take place over the course of two weekends, July 18 through July 27, at the Atwater Village Theatre. Admission is free and open to the public; reservations are recommended.
Making up the Lab’s Class of ’25 are Malick Ceesay, Daniel Hirsch, Grace McLeod, Mildred Inez Lewis, Nico Pang, and Liba Vaynberg. The six playwrights met on a monthly basis during their one-year residency to share and develop work in a peer-guided format led by program director Nicholas Pilapil, himself an IAMA Playwrights Lab alumnus. Pilapil’s play, The Bottoming Process, developed in the inaugural 2019-20 Lab, was produced by IAMA in a co-production with the Los Angeles LGBT Center in 2023. Also developed in the 2019-20 Lab, Job by Max Wolf Friedlich, went on to receive a Broadway run from July 15 through October 27, 2024.
The schedule of readings is as follows:
Friday, July 18 at 8 p.m.:
Closing Costs by Grace McLeod. Directed by Hannah Wolf.
Buying a house in Los Angeles these days is a joke. But buying a 3-bed 2-bath Spanish-style bungalow in Atwater Village is… a farce. CLOSING COSTS is a raucous send-up of the American dream, the Hollywood dream, and the real estate market in one of the most beautiful, expensive, and apocalyptic cities on earth. Let the bidding war begin.
Saturday, July 19 at 8 p.m.:
Aretha and the G-Men by Mildred Inez Lewis. Directed by Celia Mandela Rivera.
It’s 1967, and Aretha Franklin has broken through with her iconic hit, “Respect.” Its popularity triggers FBI surveillance. Her spy? Patrick, a fresh-faced FBI recruit. Under pressure from her label to distance herself from the civil rights movement, Aretha uses late night "calls" with Patrick to work through her dilemmas, creating an unlikely kinship between them.
Sunday, July 20 at 8 p.m.:
Beloved Dave by Daniel Hirsch. Directed by Jennifer Chambers.
Dave’s lonely days are finally over: he’s fallen for a lovely young woman named Sophie. The only problem: Sophie may not be a lovely young woman at all. Her real identity could destroy Dave and—given his not-so insignificant job— may have grave repercussions on nothing less than global security and world peace.
Friday, July 25 at 8 p.m.:
I Think I Was Born Missing You by Nico Pang. Directed by H. Adam Harris.
A trans equestrian fights for his place in the elite world of English riding that has never embraced him or his Chinese Malaysian father. When Western circuit’s golden boy crosses his path, their rivalry ignites a reckoning with desire, family, and tradition. A queer, poetic reimagining of the Butterfly Lovers legend, I Think I Was Born Missing You asks how we carve out a life amid the legacies we inherit and the dreams we long for.
Saturday, July 26 at 8 p.m.:
The Elephants In The Room by Liba Vaynberg. Directed by Katherine Chou.
The Elephants In The Room is a play about the last two elephants at the Bronx Zoo. Who have been living together on 1.15 miserable acres for almost fifty years. There’s Happy who isn’t happy at all. And Patti who tries to make do. As they persist through their memories, dreams, and rituals, they await a legal decision: will they be freed? Should they be freed? This is a darkly funny two-hander about captivity and freedom as Happy and Patti live out their days at the mercy of humanity.
Sunday, July 27 at 8 p.m.:
Shadow Boat by Malick Ceesay. Directed by Velani Dibba.
SHADOW BOAT explores the story of three young friends amid growing their philanthropic business: the Gambian American Association. As they continue to seek better resources and support for their Gambian community, the movement comes to a halt when learning that their brick and mortar is in the heart of a soon-to-be massive redevelopment plan in the northeast - backed by the Governor himself. As they are given an ultimatum for their beloved community center, the true realities of the "American Dream" for these young innovators become questionable; testing their true desire to protect what they worked so hard to build.
