KAYENTA NEW PLAY LAB
Vampire Panic!
by Kate Mickere (Los Angeles, CA)
Saturday, August 30, 7:30pm
Sunday, August 31, 3:00pm
The Lorraine Boccardo Theater
In 1890s New England, during a deadly wave of consumption, Lucy returns home to care for her orphaned niece, Faith, just as rumors of vampires begin to take hold. While Lucy turns to science for answers, young Faith is drawn to a preacher who believes the disease is part of a supernatural threat. As fear and folklore spread through the town, the line between illness and myth becomes harder to define.
About Kate Mickere
Kate Mickere is a playwright who is inspired by the forgotten stories of remarkable women.
Her play Nurse Cadden won First Place in the inaugural A is For Playwriting Contest. Nurse Cadden is published by Next Stage Press and is available at The Drama Bookshop in NYC, where it was a staff pick. Recent plays include Vampire Panic! (2024 Great Plains Theatre Conference; Austin Film Festival Playwriting Competition Semifinalist) and A Christmas Coven (developed at Moving Arts Theatre, Los Angeles).
Kate’s playwriting has also been developed/produced by Wild Imaginings, The Vagrancy, The Last Frontier Theatre Conference, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, Ugly Rhino and Meet Cute – LA. She is currently in the Road Theatre’s Under Construction Playwriting Group.
Her screenplay, Capturing the Stars, won a $20,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and received an Honorable Mention for the Sloan/Tribeca Grand Jury Prize.
As an essayist, Kate has been published by The Los Angeles Times, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Belladonna Comedy, XO Jane and The Awl. She’s also written monologues for the collection “Teen Girls’ Comedic Monologues That Are Actually Funny,” published by Applause Books.
Kate holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University, where she was the recipient of the Steven Bochco Fellowship. She’s an alumna of The British American Drama Academy’s Midsummer in Oxford Program and has studied improv and sketch comedy at The Upright Citizens Brigade.
KAYENTA NEW PLAY LAB
Now in its third year, the Kayenta New Play Lab is where bold new voices in American theater come to life. Over three exhilarating weeks, six visionary playwrights—chosen by a panel of esteemed local and national theatermakers—dive into an intensive creative residency, shaping fresh, original works for the stage.
Audiences are invited to witness the magic unfold through staged readings of these brand-new plays—raw, real, and alive with possibility. Stay after each reading for an engaging dialogue with the artists, where your feedback helps shape the evolution of each piece.
Whether you’re a dedicated theatergoer, a curious creative, or someone who simply loves the thrill of live performance, the New Play Lab is your front-row seat to the next wave of theatrical storytelling. Come be part of the process. Come be inspired.
The 2025 Kayenta New Play Lab is generously sponsored by Douglas Caputo and Desert Dweller Real Estate.
