INKubator New Play Program

THE INKUBATOR NEW PLAY FESTIVAL RETURNS!
May 13-15, May 20-22, 2024

WEEK 1
May 13th
"Gore is for Girls" by Leo Layla Díaz
May 14th
"couple goals" by Upasna Barath
May 15th
"We’d Rather Know If You Weren’t Coming Back" by Dave Osmundsen

WEEK 2
May 20th
"The Rip" by Neil Levi
May 21st
"Talk to Me, Ocey Snead" by Amanda Sage Comerford
May 22nd
"Bizarro World" by Marcus Scott

Director/Synopsis for each play below.

WEEK 1
May 13th "Gore is for Girls" by Leo Layla Díaz
Directed by Hannah Marie Pederson
You’re invited to Trinity’s Necromancy Party! She found a dead body in her backyard, and now she’s invited all her friends and others to resurrect the mystery man. Together they’ll celebrate the summer, play jump rope with the line between life and death, and try not to start the zombie apocalypse in Jersey City in this new play by Leo Layla Díaz.

May 14th "couple goals" by Upasna Barath
Directed by Upasna Barath
After exchanging flirty messages on Instagram, two actors meet at a futuristic Malibu house for a romantic and creative getaway. As Ananya, a fresh-out-of-rehab TV actress, and Nathan, an award-winning performer, spend time in isolation with each other, reality unravels. In this drama with a surrealist twist, Ananya and Nathan realize the complexities of their relationship are inextricably tied to their industry.

May 15th "We’d Rather Know If You Weren’t Coming Back" by Dave Osmundsen
Directed by Mack Brown
In a seaside town called Crichton-by-the-Sea, a young Autistic woman becomes a tour guide for a local ghost tour company. As she and her fellow guides confront the literal and metaphorical ghosts that haunt them, sinister secrets arise that force them to reexamine their individual and collective mythologies. A new play about the places and people we haunt, and the people and places we allow to haunt us.

WEEK 2
May 20th "The Rip" by Neil Levi
Directed by Isabel Perry
A coastal town on the edge of a vast ocean. Two teenage brothers defy their parents’ prohibition and head to the beach, where hostile locals and a menacing sea await them. When one brother returns home without the other, everything that’s held the family together threatens to fall apart. The Rip is about trying to find your way in the world when you don't know where or who you are, and the fine line between love and hate.

May 21st "Talk to Me, Ocey Snead" by Amanda Sage Comerford
Directed by Jessica Brater
In this bizarre yet true New Jersey tale of spectacle, scandal and betrayal, a bathtub drowning quickly becomes a murder mystery. As three sisters cloaked in black emerge as the prime suspects, local sleuths set out to discover not only what’s real, but what lies behind the veils.

May 22nd "Bizarro World" by Marcus Scott
Directed by Kevin R. Free
A clique of young entrepreneurial computer programmers—all diversity hires at a Big Tech company in Silicon Valley—decide to strike out on their own by creating an innovative, one-of-kind simulated reality affinity space that comes complete with a truly revolutionary and singular artificial intelligence–powered virtual assistant. When a power grab commences and power players try getting ahold of the algorithm that will launch the group into the upper echelon of the tech world, they make a last-minute addition before launching. There’s just one thing they weren’t counting on and now all hell is about to break loose. Part office comedy, part sci-fi techno-thriller, Bizarro World explores machine learning, unlearning, the dualities of justice and injustice, equity and equality, visibility and representation, surveillance and over-policing in the digital age.

About INKubator

Art House Productions is a performing and visual arts center established in 2001 and located in Jersey City, NJ. Art House is a home for adventurous artists, audiences, and ideas. We engage, inspire, entertain, and challenge audiences with ambitious performing and visual arts programs. We provide arts education programs that promote life-long learning to a diverse community and celebrate the essential power of the arts to illuminate our common humanity.

Art House's INKubator program is an eight-month generative playwriting process for a select group of playwrights-in-residence in Jersey City, culminating in the annual INKubator New Play Festival in May. Playwrights will meet as a group and in-person monthly from October 2023 to May 2024 alongside program director Alex Tobey to share new pages, receive feedback, and develop the first draft of a brand new play. At the end of the process in May, each writer will team up with a professional director and actors to present a public staged reading, part of the annual INKubator New Play Festival in May.

2023-2024 INKubator cohort: 
Upasna Barath, Amanda Sage Comerford, Leo Layla Díaz, Neil Levi, Dave Osmundsen, and Marcus Scott.

At its essence, INKubator supports playwrights and the plays they are creating at their earliest stage of development while also creating opportunities for long-term artistic relationships with Art House and the Art House community.

2022-2023 INKubator Writers 

Micharne Cloughley, Amir-Gabriel Gad, Adin Lenahan, Iraisa Ann Reilly, Edwin Rivera-Arias, Emmy Weissman