NOW OR NEVER: Women's Work Short Play Festival

Patrick Talbot
Nov 29, 2021
2 min read

Updated: Dec 12, 2021

Patrick acted as an ASM for the Now or Never Festival.

About this event

The inaugural Meganne George Women's Work Short Play Festival is comprised of six plays in two programs.

NPTC is pleased to announce that we are renaming this Festival in honor of our dear friend and colleague Meganne George, who left us far too early in 2019. We have been able to showcase the work of 66 writers since the LAB's creation, largely due to Meganne's innovations since 2008 in creating a format that allows for "representative" design elements using projections and a "sculpture set" to fit within our small studio space. The Festival would not exist without her genius and she is sorely missed.

The Women’s Work LAB develops plays created from scratch in a unique process that begins anew each February. The theme of Now or Never was inspired (as all themes have been) by the social and political discourse percolating in the U.S. at the start of a new LAB. The 2020 theme was influenced by impeachment hearings, climate disasters and the danger posed by increasing anti-democracy forces.

PROGRAM A

begins with COLD TURKEY by YULIYA TSUKERMAN, a study of two misfits who find hope in the fleeting nature of the modern news cycle in the face of personal tragedy. BRETT & ASHLEY by JENNIFER ROWLAND imagines a different outcome to the Kavanaugh Supreme Court appointment by examining the actions of his wife, an overlooked figure in that confirmation circus. THE EMPRESS OF JUPITER by LAURA ZLATOS is an absurdist farce which asks how far will one woman go to find the change she is seeking?

PROGRAM B

opens with RUNNING OUT OF TIME, ZAKEIA TYSON-CROSS' dark comedy set in the near future where escape from Planet Earth is the only option for survival. One African American family must heal their internal wounds before they can overcome their external reality. In FOUL LINE, K. ALEXA MAVROMATIS juxtaposes the early days of the COVID lockdown with two high school seniors' struggle to come out. Finally, UMA PARANJPE offers a heart-breaking example of our Now or Never theme with FROSTING ON TOP, in which two best friends and soul mates are forced to confront a future without each other, in a world that is literally crumbling around them.

Read more about the festival and playwrights here:

https://www.newperspectivestheatre.org/current-programs/inaguaral-meganne-george-festival