New Voices/New Work
New Voices/New Work was created in 2002 to commission and develop new work for young audiences and to expand the canon of LGBTQ+ themed plays. The program celebrates and gives voice to a broad range of playwrights. NCTC has produced more than 40 world premieres over nearly four decades.
Works In Progress
SIMPLE MEXICAN PLEASURES (WORKING TITLE)
By Eric Reyes Loo
After a breakup with the love of his life, Eric travels to Mexico to have the best meal of his life. That meal unlocks a portal that leads to his ancestors, who carry with them Mexico’s history and Eric’s connection to his family’s artistic, queer and Chinese history. Simple Mexican Pleasures will take an irreverent look at one man’s journey to find out who he is from the people who came before him, told from the point of view of a playwright in his own play – and all the food he eats in Mexico.
Eric (he/him/his) spent his childhood crafting the perfect comeback during his sixteen years of Catholic school education, where his mother sent him to become a priest. All of this gave him plenty of material as he turned to writing and producing theatre in New York and his native Los Angeles. Eric joined NCTC as a writer recently on the hit podcast In Good Company. Eric’s play on active shooter drills, THIS IS ONLY A TEST, was produced to acclaim in February 2022 by Broken Nose Theatre in Chicago. His autobiographical play DEATH AND COCKROACHES was produced in 2018 by Chalk Rep in Los Angeles. In addition, Eric is a television writer/producer who has written on GUIDANCE for AwesomenessTV/Hulu and A.J. AND THE QUEEN for Netflix. Plus he has a couple of TV projects in development, centering Latinx stories. Eric received his MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Premiering in the 2024-2025 Season.
SPANISH STEW
By Marga Gomez
Marga Gomez returns to NCTC at long last! We are honored that her new comedic work Spanish Stew will continue its development that began at The Marsh – San Francisco at NCTC. This new solo work recounts the frisky adventures of young Marga, a banished baby dyke during 1976 the bicentennial year. While America celebrated freedom, her Latino parents opposed hers, Marga followed the love of her life from New York to San Francisco where she found new girlfriends, odd jobs, cheap rent, weird roommates, lots of gay people, parties till dawn and hope. Spanish Stew in Marga’s story is literally a recipe from the Caribbean cuisine of her parents and also a tasty relevant reminder of how food can tear down walls.
Marga Gomez (she/her/they) is the writer/performer of 15 solo plays which have been produced Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway at The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, La MaMa ETC, Dixon Place, The Public Theater, internationally at the Edinburgh Fringe and Montreal’s Just For Laughs Festival and in the Bay Area at The Marsh, Brava Theater, Theatre Rhinoceros, Magic Theater, Playground and New Conservatory Theatre Center.
Her awards include the GLAAD Media Award for Theatre, The San Francisco Arts Council Individual Artist Grant, The Center for Cultural Innovation Grant, the 2022 United States Artists Fellowship and most recently “Best Comedian” awards from both The Bay Area Reporter and SF Bay Guardian/48 Hills. She was an original member of the Latino performance ensemble Culture Clash. Her acting credits include Fefu and Her Friends American Conservatory Theater, plus a guest role on Netflix Sense8.
She is also a stand-up comedian with appearances on Comedy Central, LOGO, HBO’s Comic Relief, Showtime’s Latino Laugh Festival and PBS. Armistead Maupin called her “Astonishing.” Robin Williams called her a “Lesbian Lenny Bruce.” Rock star Sting once told her “You’re f@cking funny.” Gomez was born and raised in Washington Heights to a Cuban comedian father and a Puerto Rican Dancer/Actress mother. Photo credit: Cynthia Smalley.
Follow Marga on Instagram @themargagomez
Premiering in the 2024-2025 Season.
History
New Voices/New Work (originally New Play Development Lab) launched in 2002 and has commissioned and produced the following World Premieres:
- 2003 – Mysterious Skin by Prince Gomolvilas
- 2004 – Breakfast with Scot by Michael Downing
- 2005 – Crucifixion by Terrence McNally
- 2006 – The War At Home by Brad Erickson. Recently
- 2008 – It’s Murder, Mary! by Andrew Black and Patricia Milton
- 2011 – Waiting for Giovanni by Jewelle Gomez, in collaboration with Harry Waters, Jr
- 2012 – Rights of Passage by Ed Decker & Robert Leone
- 2013 – Pansy by Evan Johnson, in collaboration with Ben Randle (as part of Emerging Artist Program)
- 2013 – American Dream by Brad Erickson
- 2017 – Leaving the Blues by Jewelle Gomez
- 2017 – Everything That’s Beautiful by Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder
- 2017 – warplay by JC Lee
- 2017 – This Bitter Earth by Harrison David Rivers
- 2018 – Still at Risk by Tim Pinckney
- 2019 – This Side of Crazy by Del Shores
- 2020 – You’ll Catch Flies by Ryan Fogarty
- 2020 – The Book of Mountains and Seas by Yilong Liu (suspended due to the COVID-19 after one preview performance on March 6, 2020)
- 2020 – The Law of Attraction by Patricia Milton
- 2021 – Interlude by Harrison David Rivers
- 2021 – Puppy Mind: Learning to Train Your Wandering Mind by Andrew Nance
- 2022 – PrEP Play, or Blue Parachute by Yilong Liu
- 2022 – A Picture of Two Boys by Nick Malakhow
- 2023 – Getting There by Dipika Guha
New Voices/New Work is supported in part by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, James Irvine Foundation, Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, and the generosity of our Individual Donors.
PLAYS FROM NCTC
The following plays commissioned and produced by NCTC are available for future productions.
For performance rights, please contact Ed Decker at ed@nctcsf.org
WAITING FOR GIOVANNI
by Jewelle Gomez, in collaboration with Harry Water’s Jr.
World Premiere, 2011-2012 Season
The year is 1956. A young black writer from the stoops of Harlem has become a literary success. He has a social circle that praises him, a profession that he loves, and an eager line of lovers. While writing his second novel however, Jimmy encounters hostility not only from his community of activists and writers, but from his white editor William. William warns Jimmy that the novel, filled with sensual homosexual content, will end his hard earned career. While Jimmy struggles with his peers, he also finds himself in conflict with Giovanni, the embodiment of his desire. Based on a split second if indecision in the mind of world renown author James Baldwin, Waiting for Giovanni explores the emotional and professional dilemmas that loom over this fierce Harlem man – a man who insists on being true to love, to politics, and to the ghosts that live in his head.
RIGHTS OF PASSAGE
by Ed Decker & Robert Leone
World Premiere, 2012-2013 Season
Mixing traditional forms of storytelling, including puppetry, mask, and dance, with modern devices such as digital media, Rights of Passage deftly explores the struggle that each of us faces in establishing our identity and living in a way that is true to ourselves. At the center of the play is Wayan, a young, gay, Hindu man, who searches for a way to reconcile who he is with what his family and community expects of him. From the central story of Wayan’s journey, the play reaches out to tell true stories of struggles and triumphs from around the world. Each story fits into the play’s overall narrative, which is built around three key rites of passage in life – childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
AMERICAN DREAM
by Brad Erickson
World Premiere, 2013-2014 Season
American Dream is set in San Diego, California and a Spanish colonial town deep in the heart of Mexico. The story straddles the border and explores the literal and spiritual frontiers the characters are challenged to cross. In the play, Tom, a recently divorced, and recently out, 40-something architect finds himself unexpectedly falling in love with his handsome Spanish teacher, Salvador, in the beautiful city of San Miguel, Mexico. Tom’s ex-wife, Cara, bitterly clings to the life that has been torn away from her and vows to keep Tom from bringing Salvador home to San Diego. Tom enlists the help of Cara’s beau, an influential Republican attorney, and that of an unlikely Minute Man, in an attempt to smuggle Salvador across the border.