Second Stage Theater will continue to promote emerging talent with its 2022 Judith Champion New Voices Reading Series, offering free, one-night-only readings of new works. All presentations will start at 6:30 PM and take place at Second Stage’s Tony Kiser Theater Off-Broadway.
The series begins January 18 with Toros by Danny Tejera, directed by David Mendizábal, followed by The Sensational Sea Mink-ettes by Vivian J.O. Barnes, directed by Cristina Angeles (January 24) and Yellow Dream$ by Susan Xu, directed by May Adrales (January 31).
Toros follows three international late-20-year-olds (and one dying golden retriever) as they hang out, get drunk, smoke weed, and more in a garage in Madrid as they try to sort out their lives. Tejera is a Spanish-American writer and performer. He’s a MacDowell Fellow and has been a resident at Tofte Lake Center. He recently completed a Playwriting M.F.A. at Hunter College and UT-Austin.
The Sensational Sea Mink-ettes tells the story of a dance team as they prepare for their homecoming performance. As the big day creeps closer, infighting and the quest for perfection threaten to tear the group apart, until three of their teammates suddenly go missing. Barnes is a writer from Virginia. Her plays have been produced at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Montana Repertory Theatre, and Steppenwolf Theatre. She has developed plays at Clubbed Thumb and Ojai Playwrights Conference. She is a Lark Venturous Fellow and a member of Geffen Playhouse's 2021–2022 Writers' Room.
Yellow Dream$ is a dark comedy with music that follows an aspiring Asian-American producer and her quest to diversify the white imagination. Xu is a Brooklyn-based playwright and screenwriter. She received a B.F.A. at NYU in Film and Television and an M.F.A. in Playwriting at Hunter College.
Second Stage’s current season features Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s, now running at the Helen Hayes Theater on Broadway. A live stream of the comedy will be broadcast January 4–16 to at-home audiences. Up next at the Hayes is a revival of Richard Greenberg’s Take Me Out, followed by Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Between Riverside and Crazy in the fall. Its 2022 Off-Broadway productions include JC Lee’s To My Girls.
