Fresh Produce 2024
Live staged readings of NEW works from The Pear Playwrights’ Guild!
TICKETS
$15 for Rivals of Mars
$10 for Treachery Island
$25 for festival pass to both live readings
After the first crewed mission to Mars ends in disaster, the daughter and husband of one of the fallen astronauts plan a mission to recover the bodies. Will they succeed, or will history repeat itself?
Rivals of Mars
by Bridgette Dutta Portman
When: Saturday, Nov. 9 at 2:00 pm
About the play: It's 2044, nine years after the private space exploration company Antares, Inc., sent the first crewed mission to Mars. That mission ended in disaster for the four astronauts involved when their oxygen generator malfunctioned, leaving them dead on the Martian surface. Now, Rosa Collins, daughter of the mission’s commander, finds herself haunted by her mother's ghost. The ghost urges Rosa to help her father, the company’s CEO Jerome Collins, rebuild Antares and send a recovery mission to retrieve the bodies. When Jerome invents a fix for the failed oxygen generator and Rosa secures funding, the mission is a go. Rosa, though, has her doubts. Will the mission be a success, or will history repeat itself?
Featuring Paul Braverman, Janine Evans and Lorie Goulart.
Produced and directed by Paul Braverman and Robyn Ginsburg Braverman.
All live performances take place at The Pear Theatre: 1110 La Avenida, Suite A, Mountain View, CA 94043. Join us for a post-show audience talkback with the playwright and cast - conversation after the reading is an essential key to the development process, in many cases providing insight that unlocks something important for the playwright!
A delicious mashup of reality TV, backstage drama, and science fiction.
Treachery Island
by Greg Lam
When: Sunday, Nov. 10 at 2:00 pm
About the play: The participants of a competitive reality show similar to but legally distinct from "Survivor" are recording the finale on a secluded island when news of a catastrophic event reaches them. Now, on this remote island, this reality show cast and crew are forced to actually survive.
Featuring Paul Braverman, Nique Eagen, Drew Benjamin Jones, Daniel Zafer-Joyce, Isaac Kumpala and Kimberly Ridgeway.
Produced and directed by Paul Braverman and Robyn Ginsburg Braverman.
All live performances take place at The Pear Theatre: 1110 La Avenida, Suite A, Mountain View, CA 94043. Join us for a post-show audience talkback with the playwright and cast - conversation after the reading is an essential key to the development process, in many cases providing insight that unlocks something important for the playwright!
About the playwrights…
Bridgette Dutta Portman is a playwright, teacher, and novelist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. More than two dozen of her plays have been produced locally, nationally, and internationally. She is president of the Pear Theatre board of directors and a member of the Pear Playwrights' Guild, the PlayGround SF writers pool, and the Dramatists' Guild. She received the 2023 June Anne Baker Prize from PlayGround, which resulted in the commissioning of Rivals of Mars. She has been a finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights' Festival, the Theatre Bay Area TITAN award, the PlayPenn Conference, the New Dramatists playwrights' residency, and more. She holds an MFA in creative writing (Spalding University, 2018) and teaches composition and dramatic writing at UC Berkeley.
Greg Lam is a playwright, screenwriter, podcaster and board game designer who lives in the Bay Area. He is the co-founder of the Asian-American Playwright Collective, a member of The Pulp Stage Writer's Room, Playground SF, and the administrator of The Pear Theatre's Playwright Guild. He wrote last season's mainstage Pear Theatre production "Chaplin & Keaton on the Set of Limelight". For more about Greg, see https://greglam.wixsite.com/home.
A note from the producers…
We are so excited for this year’s Fresh Produce for many reasons but first and foremost - we’re bringing you several fascinating plays. The Pear has a long history of presenting developmental readings, going back to 2002, the year Pear was founded. Although it wasn’t always called Fresh Produce, we launched the Pear Developmental Reading program in its current form in autumn of 2014.
The program presents full length new works from members of The Pear Playwrights’ Guild with the goal of preparing the plays for subsequent production. Once this weekend’s readings are complete, we will have conducted developmental readings for over 30 plays, many of which went on to receive full productions.
We thank the many actors who have contributed their collective time, talent and energy to these readings over the years. Their embodiment of these characters, without the benefit of props, blocking or costumes, has been consistently exceptional. We must also thank the many Pear Playwright Guild members who have entrusted us with their new work; the faith they have shown in our process has been inspiring.
Last, but not least, we’d like to thank you, the audience. Over the years, we’ve learned the conversation after the reading is an essential key to the development process, in many cases providing insight that unlocks something important for the playwright.
Readings will be followed by an audience talkback. For anyone streaming the readings after the fact, you’ll still be able to contribute your thoughts for the writer via an online Q&A.
We’re proud to present these wonderful plays, and then hear what you have to say. And now - on with the show!
