21st ANNUAL New Works Festival
August 9-18, 2024
Join us for the 21st Annual New Works Festival! It’s in our DNA at TheatreWorks to gather our friends and family and build community around the creation of new plays for the American theatre. Plays that celebrate the human condition – stories that build understanding, that entertain, that take us to new surroundings, new emotions, and new heights! We can’t wait to share this journey with you. See you at the festival!
GET YOUR TICKETS!
Want to see it all? Try a... FESTIVAL PASS
Subscribers: $60
Non-subscribers: $65
Each pass entitles you to a ticket to one performance of each of this year’s four shows and more*!
*Festival pass holders get access to Meet the Artist and a Gio Bday Event!
Have a particular show in mind? Try...
INDIVIDUAL EVENT TICKETS
$25
You can buy individual tickets to any of our readings for $25 apiece! Just click the button of the show you’re interested in seeing below!
I’m sending this to share the news that officially and gratefully, my title this summer will be the “Artistic Producer of the New Works Festival.” I am so thrilled to step into this role this year, and it feels full circle for me. My first role at TheatreWorks was as a soundboard mixer for the 2010 New Works Festival. This role led me on a path in my theatre and TheatreWorks career that was beyond my imagination as a 22-year-old right out of college.
I am very grateful to Artistic Director Giovanna Sardelli for entrusting me with this festival that she has helmed with such excitement and energy since 2014. I know this festival means so much to her as it does to all of you, our TheatreWorks family, and I will strive to keep TheatreWorks’ incredible reputation for developing New Works going strong. As in festivals past, we will have our Welcome Dinner on August 9, a fun closing party on the Sunday of Festival weekend, August 18 (Gio’s Birthday!!), and myriad other activities, events, and artist engagement opportunities. Keep your eyes peeled for more information coming soon. With all of that, I am excited to share with you the New Works crop of plays and musicals that we are nurturing this summer! For the 2024 New Works Festival, we will be producing staged reading workshops of two musicals and two plays along with an exciting kickoff keynote address. Get your tickets and passes today!
staged readings
5 & Dime
Book by Ashley Robinson
Lyrics by Shakina
Music by Dan Gillespie Sells
Based on the play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean by Ed Gracyzk
Set in the 1970s in a ramshackle Texas town, a group of friends as they celebrate the 20th reunion of their fan club “The Disciples of James Dean.”
Sun, Aug 11, 3pm
Wed, Aug 14, 7pm
Sat, Aug 17, 8pm
Interested in all? Grab a Festival Pass!
Each pass entitles you to a ticket to one performance of each of this year’s four shows.
special event
KICKOFF DINNER & KEYNOTE
From Classics to Rap Scripts:
Unlocking the Beat of The Tell-Tale Heart
Fri, Aug 9, 8pm
Dinner @ 6:00 PM
Onstage Event @ 8:00PM
Celebrate the start of our 21st annual New Works Festival with dinner, drinks, and the beat box stylings.
After dinner, prepare for an unforgettable keynote from Carlos Aguirre (actor, musician, vocal percussionist, educator).
Thank you to our festival sponsors!
venue
Lucie Stern Theatre
Audiences at the TheatreWorks NWF will get the first peek at the extensive remodeling underway at the Lucie Stern Theatre. The new space is not quite finished, the handsome new plush seats will not be installed yet so you will be sitting on temporary chairs (with foam padding). When our audiences return to the Lucie Stern in December for Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberly it will be to a gorgeous new space, with comfy new seats and increased accessibility for all!