ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The Meganne George Women's Work Short Play Festival

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The Meganne George Women's Work Short Play Festival
The festival is comprised of six plays performed in two programs. Program A includes: Customs by Erin Moughon, directed by Melody Brooks; A Laugh Too Far by Yekta Khaghani, directed by Kristen Kelso; and The Future is Female by Melissa Maney, directed by Jennie Reich Litzky. Program B includes: Bargaining CHIP by Teresa Mella Fogel, directed by Catalina Beltrán; The Manifestation of Sunny Black by Seshat Yon'Shea Walker, directed by Dani Ortiz, and Daisy Knows Best by Patricia Lynn, directed by Kristen Kelso. Rychard Curtiss is Production Designer and Ximena Morellón is Production Stage Manager.
Program A begins with Customs, which asks, "who controls the truth, and who's allowed to know it?" In the not too distant future, three sisters find themselves at odds over the answer to that question and to perhaps a more important one—who did Mom like best? In A Laugh Too Far, a powerful talk show personality suddenly loses her voice. Who will speak for her now, and what does she really want to say? In The Future is Female, three husbands plot to use their dabbling in pseudo-science to turn their wives into creatures of complete submission in a Frankensteinian satire.
Program B opens with Bargaining CHIP, in which a newly widowed Elena tries to manage her troubled teenaged son. After his brush with the law, a new tech company offers a helping hand. It's a blue moon night in The Manifestation of Sunny Black. Sunny is not herself since Auntie disappeared. Will a SIS program simulating Auntie's thoughts and feelings help discover her whereabouts or will their reconnection be lost in the stars? And it's a dark and stormy night in Daisy Knows Best. Two estranged friends are in a remote cabin in the woods. With a doll named Daisy. Will Annie and Isabel succeed at reconnecting, or does Daisy have other plans?
Named after Meganne George, who served as Resident Production Designer at NPTC for 19 years and was instrumental in creating its structure and design elements, the festival presents original short plays developed in NPTC's Women's Work LAB which takes writers from the first impulse for their play to a rehearsed and staged performance for live audiences, all within six months. There is no other program of its kind in New York City. All themes stem from the social and political discourse percolating in the U.S. at the start of a new LAB. Artificial Intelligence was inspired by the proliferation of new technology that promises to solve any problems, as well as the increasing assault on scientific inquiry and a growing trend to disregard expertise. As always, each writer found her own take on this theme, enabling the creation of plays that are as unique and diverse as the talented writers themselves.