Live Arts Theater in downtown Charlottesville presents WATERWORKS, a festival of new theatrical work May 12-June 3, 2023.
7pm | Founders Theater - Third Floor
UNSUNG STORIES: WATERWORKS 2024 Spotlights
A dynamic night of new writing and a glimpse into next year’s WATERWORKS festival! This night of UNSUNG STORIES will showcase three unique and provocative new works selected from 2023 WATERWORKS submissions to be developed and presented during the 2024 WATERWORKS festival:
AH WING AND THE AUTOMATON EAGLE (2023 WATERWORKS Artist Award Winner) is a steampunk alternate history retelling of the 1877 San Francisco Chinatown riot. The story centers Ah Wing, a 14-year-old genius artificer who is trying to finish his late father’s final project: an automaton bald eagle. Although set in a fictional world, the play is based on real historical tensions that led to massacres in several Chinatowns across the United States in the 19th century. AH WING AND THE AUTOMATON EAGLE captures an era where the American promise of innovation and prosperity was built on the backs of immigrants, whose names and stories have since been erased.
Co-Produced with LingXi Chinese Theatre
Directed by Cecilia Huang | Produced by Meixin Yu
Featuring: Y.C. Pan, Angel Lin, Mei Yu, Angela Li
BLUE RIDGE MAMA, an original hometown musical based on the playwright’s life and ancestry, follows Chris–a Black, queer, and non-binary college student who reluctantly returns home to Charlottesville, VA during winter break to visit their mother, Shelley, and grandmother, Nana. From the moment they walk into their Nana’s apartment, difficult conversations about Chris’ identity, anxiety, and spirituality ensue. When a massive snowstorm traps the three generations under the same roof, Chris has no choice but to navigate their turbulent relationships with both Shelley and Nana as they come to terms with their inner child and traumatic experiences growing up in the very same city where their ancestors were enslaved.
Featuring: Ti Ames, Chloe Rogers, and Leslie Scott-Jones
Sharletaneke, the cream lady, sells skin bleaching cream to the black women on her island home in The Bahamas. After two white women wander into her store searching for some “brown skin,” she is set on a quest to do something she's never done before--turn a white woman into a black woman. She asks the local obeah lady for help, but she gets more than initially bargained for. THE COLOUR WOMAN (2023 WATERWORKS Artist Award Winner) juggles with the intersecting themes of colorism, immigration, and Caribbean folklore.
Moderated by New Works Director Adrienne Oliver
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2023 WATERWORKS INDEX OF SHOWS