The FINISH LINE: A Bill and Judy Garrett Commission
New Play Series 2024
Join us for our annual new play reading series The Finish Line: A Bill and Judy Garrett Commission. This multi-day event includes a reception, staged readings, and talk-backs that are all free to the public. In partnership with the UCSD MFA Playwriting Program, the commission supports Cygnet’s commitment to new theatrical works, written by groundbreaking local playwrights as well as nationally recognized playwrights.
Playwrights awarded The Finish Line Commission will be given a week-long workshop culminating in a public reading, a financial reward, and an assurance that the play will have an opportunity for a world premiere production at Cygnet.
Public readings of all three plays will take place November 9 – 10, 2024 at Cygnet Theatre. Attendance is free but reservations are required.
Cygnet Theatre’s Season 19 included two world premieres that were past Finish Line commissions. Sharon by Keiko Green premiered in June of 2023 and The Little Fellow (or – The Queen of Tarts Tells All) by Kate Hamill received its world premiere October of 2023.
- Plays
- Playwrights
- Schedule
Lonnie’s Lament
By Mylan Gray
Directed by Lamar Perry
November 9 at 2:00 PM
After having his marriage proposal turned down by his long term girlfriend, Marvin leaves Chicago for New York City to pursue his dream of becoming a saxophone legend. While reveling in the freedom of 1920’s Harlem at its peak, he falls in love with a man for the first time. When his ex-fiancé comes back into his life, he is forced to choose between the two loves of his life. Is it possible to love two people fully at once? Should you?
I AM MY OWN THERAPIST
By Phanésia Pharel
Directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg
November 9 at 7:00 PM
A string of mysteries that uncover the violent, isolating experience of present day black women — a revolt of a play asking us: what do you do when no one is listening?
Baby Shower Katie
By Beth Hyland
Directed by Jill Jones
November 10 at 2:00 PM
Rebecca desperately wants to have a child; her lifelong best friend Hannah has no idea if she can or if she should or if she wants to. Will their friendship survive their diverging lives, or will their choices tear them apart? BABY SHOWER KATIE is a comedy told in four baby showers (for three different women named Katie) about friendship, new motherhood, and the insanity of the baby shower industrial complex.
Mylan Gray
Mylan Gray is an Eagle Scout and Kansas State debate champion turned playwright. He is a descendant of black educators and soldiers and are preoccupied with transforming Black suffering into Black joy, laughter and peace. He has received the Lorraine Hansberry Award from the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival for his play, Buried in Blood. He is a graduate of Stanford University, where he received the Kennell Jackson Jr. Award. Mylan’s work draws on his deep reverence for Brazil and a penchant for spiritual journeying. He is currently a third-year MFA student in Playwriting at UC San Diego.
Phanésia Pharel
Her honors include the Kennedy Center Lorraine Hansberry Award, Kilroys List, Bay Area Playwrights Festival Finalist/Honorable Mention, Jane Chambers Finalist, A is For Playwriting award, Kennedy Center Latinx Playwriting Award, and the Frank Moffett Mosier Fellowship for Works in Heightened Finalist Prize. Phanésia is a member of the Obie-winning EST/Youngblood group and The Wish Collective, whose play the wish has been performed in over 20 states since the fall of Roe v. Wade. She commissions include the Atlantic Theater and the Miranda Family Fund.
Beth Hyland
Beth Hyland is a playwright and screenwriter based in Southern California. Her plays and musicals include Sylvia Sylvia Sylvia, Fires, Ohio, Seagulls, Killed A Man (Joking), Grippy Sock Vacation, All-One! The Dr. Bronner’s Play, Clearing, For Annie, and Red Bowl at the Jeffs. Her play Sylvia Sylvia Sylvia is the 2024 recipient of Williamstown Theatre Festival’s L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award; her play Fires, Ohio was the 2023 recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Paula Vogel Prize and the Mark Twain Award for Comic Playwriting.
Tickets can be reserved online. Use the link below.
