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Breaking Ground 2022

The Breaking Ground festival is a vital part of The Huntington’s new play development efforts and highlights the work of locally-based Huntington Playwriting Fellows and national writers in partnership with The Huntington. Since its inception in 2006, many Breaking Ground plays have gone on to appear as part of Huntington seasons as well as those of theatres in Boston, across the country, and internationally.

 

Readings are free and open to the public, though not to reviewing members of the press. Advance reservation is required.

 

The six-day festival will include 4 plays written by Huntington Playwriting Fellows:

 

  • Let’s Pretend We’re Married, written by Kate Cortesi and directed by Rebecca Bradshaw

Monday, October 24 at 7:30pm at The Calderwood/BCA

 

Let’s Pretend We’re Married by Kate Cortesi will now have a reading on Monday, October 24 at 7:30pm.

Sabrina’s an indoor kid. Literally. Her deathly allergy to the sun means if she takes a step outside, she’ll be dead within the week. So when her mom leaves her home alone for the first time in her sunless 25 years, there’s little danger of Sabrina sneaking out. But someone sneaking in? Enter Nic, the new kid in town with plenty of baggage.  What ensues between these two young strangers might be the strangest one-day love story in the history of one-day love stories. A hilarious, heartsick tale that combines fairytale wonder and dystopian undercurrents, Let’s Pretend We’re Married pays tribute to the power of imagination to get us through dark times when we’re stuck inside.

RSVP

 

  • Arbor, written by Catherine Epstein and directed by Morgan Green

Wednesday, July 20 at 7:30pm at The Calderwood/BCA

For visitors to the arboretum, the trees are a place of escape, a slice of nature — but for those who work there, the park is everything. Amidst the glorious redwoods and cedars is the chaos of a single dog off a leash, a staff meeting nobody wants to attend, a daughter who won’t call back, and somebody who keeps taking a dip in the pond! Catherine Epstein’s Arbor is a funny and perceptive take on how we all respond to change, growth, and natural evolution.

 

  • Black Mother Lost Daughter, written by Fedna Jacquet and directed by Stevie Walker-Webb

Friday, July 22 at 7:30pm at The Calderwood/BCA

In this searing and haunted play, playwright Fedna Jacquet asks us to consider the gap between justice and responsibility. In life, Queen painted vivid portraits that captured the truth of her subjects — but when she is killed by police, her sister Princess hopes to keep Queen’s memory alive and their mother afloat. Intimate and emotional, Black Mother Lost Daughter shows how a national reckoning echoes in the lives of three women.

 

  • Rough Magic, written by Andrew Siañez-De La O and directed by Melinda Lopez

Saturday, July 23 at 7:30pm at The Calderwood/BCA

A hurricane is raging in Houston, but that won’t stop Miranda from breaking into her school’s gym and enacting her master plan. She’ll need her abuela’s help, her best friend’s guidance, and a nudge from a friendly ghost if she wants to survive this storm. Rough Magic is an intimate reimagining of Shakespeare’s The Tempest brought to life with a touch of brujeria and the warmth of a candle.

 

 

Breaking Ground is supported by the Harry Kondoleon Playwriting Fund and the Stanford Calderwood Fund for New American Plays.