So many theaters, so little time! With so many new and returning shows on Long Beach stages this weekend, here are some options to choose from — including world-premiere new plays and the retelling of a scary classic.
The Long Beach Shakespeare Company is continuing the New Works Festival with three brand-new plays to experience this weekend, plus some fun student shorts. The New Works Festival, which began in May and June this year, continues to showcase new work by up-and-coming playwrights.
“Shav vs. Whitmore” is a new one-act play by Thomas M. Copeland about two men trying to rewrite Shakespeare in what the theater calls “a battle of pride, relevance and wit.”
The fully staged play is part of a double feature with “The Ghosts of the Globe Theatre” by Arthur Allison, about how William Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London burned down in 1613.
In Allison’s play, ghosts had to perform their plays alongside living actors on the Globe stage. The performance of Shakespeare’s “Henry VIII” was haunted the night of the fire, according to the play, not only by ghosts, but by horrible actors, making the ghosts very angry.
Both plays will perform on Friday, Sept. 18 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 20 at 4 p.m.
Another new play, “Tucked Away” by Joni Ravenna, will perform Saturday, Sept. 19 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 20 at 1 p.m.
The play, which has an adult-content warning, is about four very different women held captive by human traffickers on the top floor of an abandoned building with no electricity or running water who must find a way to connect before they can break free.
The festival will round out with four shorter new plays by students on Sunday, Sept. 20 at 8 p.m.:
- Hannah Ko’s “With ‘Meh’ Power Comes Some Responsibility” focuses on five D-list superheroes who don’t quite make the cut.
- Zach Scrima’s “This Play is About Bugs” is a 10-minute play about a dung beetle who attempts to talk a mosquito out of entering a home, reimagining an old fable in a contemporary context to explore the nature of violence in a marginalized community.
- Mara Swanson’s “You Into Bad Girls?” features a confident sister pretending to be her shy sister at a bar to woo the bartender her sister likes, but her attempt to impress him backfires.
Long Beach Shakespeare Company New Works Festival plays perform at the Helen Borgers Theatre, 4250 Atlantic Ave. in Bixby Knolls. Tickets range from $21.50 to $31.50. For tickets, call the box office at 562-997-1494 or visit LBShakespeare.org.
The Long Beach Playhouse is also opening a new production this weekend on its downstairs Mainstage, one that may thrill horror fans as Halloween season approaches.
“Night of the Living Dead” — adapted for the stage by John Faust from the 1968 cult-classic film by George Romero and John Russo — modernizes the story while elevating its stakes in an “immersive” production, as the theater describes.
The play brings new scenes and fresh narrative twists with deeper character insights while still honoring the film’s iconic moments, the theater says.
The story features a horde of marauding ghouls entrapping a group of conflicted strangers in a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse, while frantic media broadcasts and eerie visuals amplify the group’s claustrophobic dread.
The Playhouse website describes it as a production that “pulls back the curtain on the fragility of human behavior, exploring how prejudice, suspicion, and ego can be far more lethal than the monsters scratching at the windows.”
Sean Gray, the theater’s producing artistic director, said the Playhouse is taking advantage of Halloween season to do this show, but that the play is, “deeper than just zombies.”
“In 1968, a Black man taking charge to save his life and the lives of others was groundbreaking,” Gray said. “Questions of self-preservation and self-sacrifice give the show relevance beyond the marauding ghouls.”
Director David Scaglione has directed previous scary productions at the theater, including last year’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” and is also designing the set for this play, which includes a cast of 16 new and returning actors.
“Night of the Living Dead” runs Sept. 19 to Oct. 17 at the Long Beach Playhouse, 5021 E. Anaheim St., with shows Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., plus two lower-priced previews on Thursday, Sept. 17 and Friday, Sept. 18. Tickets are $22 to $33. For tickets and information, call the box office at 562-494-1014 or visit LBPlayhouse.org.
And don’t forget these continuing options as well:
- The Carpenter Center kicks off its fall season this weekend with Elizabeth Gilbert, bestselling author of “Eat, Pray, Love,” speaking on Saturday, Sept. 18 at 8 p.m. Singer Bilal then takes the stage Thursday, Sept. 24 at 8 p.m. For tickets, call the box office at 562-985-7000 or visit CarpenterArts.org.
- The Garage Theatre is continuing “The Swan” this weekend, in which a bird crashes through a woman’s window and initiates a supernatural love story, with shows Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. For tickets, visit TheGarageTheatre.org.
- The dark comedy “Hangmen” continues on Long Beach Playhouse’s upstairs Studio Theater, with shows Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets, call the box office at 562-494-1014 or visit LBPlayhouse.org.
- And three one-act plays in a Victorian home called “Tea with ‘Riders to the Sea & Some Silly Acts for Thee’” ends this weekend at the historic Bembridge House, with tea service and plays on Thursday at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. For tickets, visit TheBembridgeHouse.org.