Laguna Beach New Play Festival: All the details you could want and more

Gallimaufry Performing Arts & OCPA present The 2nd Annual Laguna Beach New Play Festival.

Exciting new plays on consecutive Saturdays from award-winning & notable OC playwrights.

LAGUNA BEACH - Gallimaufry Performing Arts, in association with the Orange County Playwrights Alliance, presents the 2nd Annual Laguna Beach New Play Festival -presentations of new plays in staged readings at the Festival of Arts Forum Theatre (Pageant of the Masters grounds), 625 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. The plays will be presented on successive Saturdays - November 7 and November 14, starting at 12:00pm each day. These script-in-hand staged readings will have the power of a production.

A $10 “festival pass” admits you to as many of the new plays as you wish! Order tickets online at www.gallimaufry.org/buytickets.html or by calling (949) 499-5060. Parking is plentiful and readily available in the lot directly across from the Pageant of the Masters grounds (simply cross the street at the traffic light) and in nearby city-owned lots.

Saturday, November 712:00pm -- Murielle’s Big Date by Kenneth La SalleIt’s Murielle’s third date with Mark. Will it come off without a hitch? Absolutely not! Murielle is hesitant about relationships, but her “friends” Sam and Angela are going to make sure Mark is Mr. Right … if they don’t scare him away first. [A comedy with adult language + themes.] Directed by Kenneth LaSalle.

2:00pm -- Freed by Erica BennettSally’s life is flashing in front of her eyes. A near-death experience causes her to revisit her past relationships with men, and a psychiatrist challenges her to confront her demons. Is she going to live or die? [A drama with adult language + themes.] Directed by Tam Warner.

4:00pm -- A High Concept Killing by Donna Bader Ralph Schumacher is nobody: just another 31-year-old screenwriter in L.A., struggling and unemployed. K.C. Kendall is a hot property - he can’t write, but he did six years in jail for manslaughter, and that gives him street cred with studios who want his next high-concept screenplays. Ralph hates K.C. from afar but secretly envies him, and he comes up with a madman’s plan to advance his career … one that intriguingly backfires. [A black comedy with adult themes.] Directed by Tira Palmquist (UC Irvine, Company of Angels).

Saturday, November 1412:00pm -- Inside My Father’s Apple Tree by Mark Piatelli Matthew lives in L.A with his lover Christian. Life is good. Then his dad passes away, and he has to go back to Boston … back to the house where he was abused, back to the family he had to escape. Will the journey home scar Matthew, or allow him to make peace with his family and childhood? [A drama with sexual situations + adult language.] Directed by Chris Calumpong (Cypress College).

2:00pm -- Hard by Eric Eberwein When an Orange County community college professor recruits two of his former students to make a sexploitation film in the Mojave Desert, nothing is as easy as it seems … and nothing about their lives will be the same. As the shoot unfolds and unravels, a mysterious young woman appears, hinting at a story untold. [A drama with sexual situations + adult language.] Directed by Tamiko Washington (Chapman University).

4:00pm -- The Troubles on 42nd Street by Jordan R. Young It's the mid-1950s: Fergus O’Shea is dying, and his famous Irish tragicomedy about The Troubles is being turned into a Broadway musical … with enough backstage drama to sink a battleship. Good thing he's attached his Dublin actor pal Jimmy Gallagher to the project as an insurance policy … or is it? Directed by Jill Forbath.

OCPA unites 40 playwrights with Orange County in common. OCPA members have won the OC WEEKLY Award for Best New Play (Johnna Adams’s Cockfighters), the Reva Shiner Playwriting Award (Johnna Adams’s Sans Merci), the Las Vegas Little Theatre New Works Competition (Eric Eberwein’s Great Western Wanderlust), the Grove Theatre Center New Play Initiative (David Hogan’s Capital) and other competitions.

Gallimaufry Performing Arts was founded in 2004 by Laguna Beach native Steve Josephson, who serves as its Executive Artistic Director. Since its inception, Gallimaufry has produced more than two dozen fully staged musicals and dance events, more than one dozen musical concerts and a variety of plays and special events. In April of 2009, Gallimaufry presented the world premiere of Hollywood screenwriter Sherwood Kiraly’s play Scared Money. Gallimaufry has also taken shows to the world-renowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival, receiving rave reviews and "Pick of the Fringe" acclaim.More information: gallimaufry.org and 949.499.5060.