Kayenta New Play Lab
The Caregiver’s Guide
by Jami Brandli (Los Angeles, CA)
Friday, August 23rd 7:30pm & Saturday, August 24th 4:00pm
The Lorraine Boccardo Theater
We are thrilled to announce the return of the Kayenta New Play Lab, a unique opportunity for theater artists and audiences to converge to create and witness the development of new work. Six playwrights have been selected to participate by a panel of local and nationally-recognized experts. Following a 10-day development residency, each play will be presented as a staged reading for our summer audiences, followed by engaging discussions and opportunities to meet the artists. This dynamic New Play Lab fosters creativity, connection, and an unforgettable artistic journey. Join us in celebrating new, original work, full of inspiration and camaraderie!
About the Play:
The Miller family rallies together as they struggle with grief and the pain of the effects Early Onset Alzheimer’s has on their loved ones.
About the Playwright:
JAMI BRANDLI is the winner of the 2023 Jane Chambers Award and the 2023 Stanley Drama Award for her play, The Magician’s Sister. Additional plays include M-Theory, Technicolor Life, The Romeo and Juliet Senior Citizens Project—A Comedy, O: A Rhapsody in Divorce, and BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!)—named on The Kilroys List and a LA Times Critics’ Choice. Her work has been produced/developed at New Dramatists, New York Theatre Workshop, Kitchen Dog Theater, Women’s Voices Theater Festival, Center Theatre Group, among other venues.
Additional accolades include: 2022 Center Theatre Group Writer’s Workshop. Nominated for Best Playwriting for an Original Play; Los Angeles Ovation Awards. Humanitas Prize PLAY LA playwright. Winner of John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award, Holland New Voices Award, Ashland New Plays Festival and Aurora Theatre Company’s GAP Prize. Finalist for the PEN Literary Award for Drama, the O’Neill and Ojai Playwrights Conference. Her short works are published with TCG, Dramatic Publishing Company, Applause Books, and Smith & Kraus.
Upcoming/recent productions and development:
The Magician’s Sister was presented as part of Center Theatre Group’s New Works Festival at The Kirk Douglas Theater. It was recently workshopped at the Center for the Arts at Kayenta where it will also receive a workshop production in January, 2025. O: A Rhapsody in Divorce is currently receiving a Rolling World Premiere with Mildred’s Umbrella (Houston, TX) in early 2024, and then with Outside In Theatre (Los Angeles) in early 2025. The Romeo and Juliet Senior Citizens Project—A Comedy was produced at Westmont College (Santa Barbara) as part of their International Shakespeare Festival, Spring 2024.
A proud member of The Playwrights Union and The Dramatists Guild, Jami teaches dramatic writing at Lesley University’s low-residency MFA program. She is represented by Navigation Media where she is developing film and TV projects. Her plays can be found on the New Play Exchange. www.jamibrandli.com
About the Team:
This reading of The Caregiver’s Guide is directed by Hannah Wolf, and is performed by:
Ginger Nelson
Jesse Saler
Maren Smith
Paul Nickels
Christine France
Hannah Wolf (she/her/hers) is an LA-based theatre director, dramaturg, and producer originally from Juneau, Alaska. She directs new plays and musicals and subverts old ones. Hannah has directed and developed work at the Geffen Playhouse, B Street Theater, La Jolla’s WOW Festival, The Playwright’s Center, Perseverance Theatre, Fusebox Festival, IAMA Theater Company, Echo Theater Company, The Fountain Theatre, Dixon Place, The Vineyard Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and many others. Recent shows include INDECENT by Paula Vogel, LAST SUMMER AT BLUEFISH COVE by Jane Chambers, FIXING KING JOHN by Kirk Lynn, INSTRUCTIONS FOR A SEANCE by Katie Bender, AIRNESS by Chelsea Marcantel, and FUN HOME by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori. Hannah’s taught and led workshops at Louisiana State University, the University of Missouri- Kansas City, the University of California Riverside, Pomona College, the University of Texas at Austin, and The Kennedy Center, among others.
Hannah is the Senior Artistic Producer at the Ojai Playwrights Conference. She’s a National Directors Fellow (the O’Neill, NNPN, SDC, and the Kennedy Center), a Fulbright Research Fellow (Bucharest Romania), a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, and the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab. She received her M.F.A. in Directing from the University of Texas at Austin, her B.A. from Western Washington University, and is a member of SDC. https://www.hannahjwolf.com/
This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Kayenta New Play Lab is sponsored by Douglas Caputo / Desert Dweller at Equity Real Estate
