The Alley presents bold new plays by Katie Bender, Hilary Bettis, Chisa Hutchinson, Anna Ziegler, Marisela Treviño Orta, Mark Shanahan, and Afsanah Aayani.
Alley Theatre announces the line-up for the 2023 Alley All New Festival, June 16 – June 25, 2023. The Festival will feature new plays including readings, workshop performances, and an Early Draft Preview. Plays by Katie Bender and Hilary Bettis will receive Workshop Performances. Readings include plays by Chisa Hutchinson, Marisela Treviño Orta, and Anna Ziegler. Early Draft Preview gives audiences a sneak peek into different works by two frequent Alley artists, Afsaneh Aayani and Mark Shanahan. Final weekend packages are available for the Festival and include priority seating, access to the lounge and a gift. Packages can be booked beginning April 25 at alleytheatre.org/allnew or by calling Guest Services at 713-220-5700. Advance reservations for individual events are recommended and can be made beginning May 10 at alleytheatre.org. All Festival performances are free and open to the public.
The Festival offers audiences a first look at plays that may appear in full productions at the Alley, as well as at theatres around the country. This season, the Alley will produce Torera by Monet Hurst-Mendoza which was developed in the 2022 Alley All New Festival. The Alley’s 77th season will include Thornton Wilder’s The Emporium completed by Kirk Lynn and The World Is Not Silent by Don X. Nguyen, which were both developed in the 2022 Alley All New Festival. Pictures from Home by Sharr White, currently making its world premiere on Broadway, received a reading in the 2020 Festival. Since the Festival began in 2016, 25 of the 38 plays presented have gone on to world premiere productions, 13 at the Alley and 12 elsewhere. The Festival has been represented on Broadway and Off-Broadway, with plays developed at the Alley also produced in Chicago, Los Angeles, London, Washington DC, Seattle, and Dallas among many other locations. Alley All New Festival plays have received both the Arnold L. Weissberger Award and the Obie Award for Best New American Play.
Liz Frankel, Director of New Work at the Alley, said “The 7th Alley All New Festival features a wonderful mix of returning artists and voices new to the Alley. Hilary Bettis (72 Miles to Go…, Queen of Basel), Chisa Hutchinson (Amerikin) and Katie Bender (Survivors: An Alamo Play) return with new pieces. Our Early Draft Preview spotlights the work of two frequent Alley artists, Afsaneh Aayani and Mark Shanahan. Additionally, after admiring their work from afar for many years, we are thrilled to welcome Anna Ziegler and Marisela Treviño Orta. We can’t wait to introduce more people to these stories”.
“I’m so excited about the next edition of our Alley All New Festival! In the past four years, we have done seven world premiere productions that came directly out of either the Alley All New Festival, an Alley All New Reading, or our Alley at Ucross residency,” shares Artistic Director Rob Melrose. “If you want to get a sense of what we will be doing in our season in the coming years, the Alley All New Festival is the place to experience these plays first. The Alley All New’s reach goes beyond the Festival too. Just this year Pictures from Home opened on Broadway and our production of Born with Teeth played for a month at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis – both plays that got their start in Alley All New!”
All workshop performances, readings and the Early Draft Preview are free and open to the public. Alley All New programming is recommended for mature audiences. Each performance will be followed by a post-show Alley Chat with the artists and led by a member of the Alley artistic staff.
All updates and schedules will be available at alleytheatre.org/allnew.
Full casting will be announced later.
2023 ALLEY ALL NEW FESTIVAL
WORKSHOP PERFORMANCES
UNTITLED HORSE PLAY
By Hilary Bettis
Directed by May Adrales
A love letter to rural girls who are so often invisible. A love letter to the horses who saved our lives and taught us to be women. A love letter to my mom who always did her best, even though I couldn’t see it. A new play by Hilary Bettis (72 Miles to Go…, 2019 Alley All New Festival and 2021 production).
INSTRUCTIONS FOR A SÉANCE
Written and performed by Katie Bender
Directed by Lily Wolff
Artistic Consultant Hannah Wolf
This DIY séance hosted by Texas writer/performer Katie Bender (Survivors: An Alamo Play; Alley All New Festival 2020) invites an audience to conjure escape artist Harry Houdini and learn how to escape their own lives. But another presence haunts the edges of the séance — a figure overlooked for far too long, who has things she still wants to say, and dammit, she’s going to get her say. Part magic show and a playful look at one of history’s greatest illusionists, Instructions for a Séance explores the gauntlet that is motherhood, artistic ambition, and escapism.
READINGS
THE BLEEDING CLASS
By Chisa Hutchinson
Directed by Jade King Carroll
Chisa Hutchinson (Amerikin, 2019 Alley All New Festival and 2022 world premiere) returns with another prescient play. There’s a deadly plague out there yet Sugar, a Dominican-American escort from the Bronx, seems immune. When she goes to see Dr. Wesley Pennington, a Black doctor who tries to stay above it all, she is floored to find that her blood might be the key to saving the world. The two move into the hastily built research compound of a pharmaceutical giant and power dynamics change in this timely socio-political thriller written prior to the Covid pandemic.
THE JANEIAD
By Anna Ziegler
Directed by Rob Melrose
In The Odyssey, Penelope’s long wait is eventually rewarded when Odysseus returns to Ithaca 20 years after leaving to fight the Trojan War. Will the same be true for Jane in Brooklyn, 20 years after her husband left for work one fateful September morning? A play about longing and hope as well as the myths we tell ourselves in order to get through the day, The Janeiad is a wry contemplation of the power, and slipperiness, of storytelling.
DECEMBER
By Marisela Treviño Orta
Directed by Marcela H. Lorca
An unlikely attraction blossoms between poetry professor Carolina and her talented student Benjamin, but Carolina can’t overlook the age difference in good conscience. Spanning twenty years, December tells the story of two Texans connecting over literature and music in Minnesota. This lyrical meditation on love, poetry, and timing is written by Texas playwright Marisela Treviño Orta, best known for The River Bride.
EARLY DRAFT PREVIEW
Get to know Afsaneh Aayani, Iranian-born, Houston-based scenic designer, puppet maker, and theater maker as she gives a window into the unique creative process behind The Painter and the Wild Swans. And meet writer/director Mark Shanahan and get a taste of what’s coming to the Alley next: Mark’s new adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which was voted the “Best Crime Novel of all Time” by the British Crime Writers’ Association.
*All readings are for mature audiences. Check alleytheatre.org for updates and the current schedule.
WORLD PREMIERE ADD-ON
In addition to the Festival workshops and readings, guests may choose to add on a ticket to Rob Melrose’s world premiere adaptation of The Servant of Two Masters, which runs concurrently:
THE SERVANT OF TWO MASTERS
Translated, Adapted, and Directed by Rob Melrose
From the original play in Italian by Carlo Goldoni
June 9 – July 2, 2023
Identities are mistaken, engagements are broken, and lovers are reunited in this world premiere adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s commedia dell’arte masterpiece. Set in Venice, mayhem erupts when the wily—and chronically hungry—servant Truffaldino hatches a zany scheme to double his wages (and his meals) by serving two masters at once. Directed by Rob Melrose, this physical comedy classic will have you laughing at and loving our hapless hero.
WEEKEND PACKAGES
Weekend packages for June 23-25 including early entry seating at all presentations, complimentary beverage coupons, After Hours Party, festival lounge access with coffee and snack service and free Wi-Fi go on sale April 25 at alleytheatre.org/allnew. Packages cost $99 with optional add-on discounted tickets for The Servant of Two Masters. Free single ticket reservations can be made beginning May 10, 2023.
PRESS
All workshop performances and readings at the Alley All New Festival are works in progress and not available for review
Press photos from 2022 Alley All New Festival can be found here.
ALLEY ALL NEW
Alley All New is comprised of a variety of public and in-house programs designed to support playwrights and cater to the needs of each new project. Through this initiative, the Alley produces world premieres, commissions new plays, and supports playwrights year-round. The Alley All New Festival made its debut in 2016. Join the Alley Insider Group by emailing alleyinsider@alleytheatre.org and learn more about new work in development and be the first to hear about Alley All New events. More information and updates can be found on alleytheatre.org/allnew, on Facebook and #AlleyAllNew.
SPONSORS: Alley Theatre is supported by the 2022-23 Season sponsors United Airlines, the official airline of Alley Theatre, and Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites Downtown Houston, the official hotel of Alley Theatre.
CONNECT WITH US: @alleytheatre, #AlleyAllNew