Each spring, TC Squared’s New Play Festival returns to the stage
All playwrights get to see their work produced on stage in the form of a 10-minute play. Playwrights are given a chance to actively follow, and participate in, the rehearsal process.
Scene from “Sleepwalking” by Charlie Lyons, featuring Anthony Goss and Cherease Lamm, performed 2025
so…what are these plays about?
Check below for description of plays featured in our Play Festival 2024
Resist What?
Written by Judi Townsend & Directed by Angel Melaine
with Angela Gunn and Josh Santora
Resist What? is a short piece highlighting life’s
inescapable temptations, and ambiguities inherent in daily life.
Adam’s Dream
Written by David Marshall & Directed by Donna Glick
with Djessy Kungu and Caroline Forbes
Adam’s Dream explores the life of civil rights pioneer and powerful Congressman, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
Throughout its journey, the play confronts issues of power, racism, sexism, and fate.
The Lost Queen Returns
Written by Charlotte Snow & Directed by Emily Thibodeau
with Melinda Kalanzis, Nia Kyte-Zable, and Bird Rattigan
Anne returns to her childhood mansion, as a governess, after suffering the loss of siblings.
After meeting the unruly teenage daughter she is meant to teach,
she devises a new way to reconnect with the memory of her siblings.
Warning Label
Written by Charlie Lyons & Directed by Claire Davies
with Francine Daveta and Michael Knowlton
When a long time partner returns from a shopping trip,
he presents his wife with a dilemma she was desperately trying to avoid.
Nineteen Lights at Breeze Knoll
Written by Noah Good & Directed by Lane Cunningham
with Amelia Sofia Rodriguez Josoy and Melinda Kalanzis
After a tragedy from their past is finally solved, Jill reconnects with her high school theater teacher, Mr. Illiano.
As they talk over coffee, they resurrect the past, along with their guilt over what happened in 1971 to Jill’s best friend Patty.
A play about teenage friendship, what happens behind closed doors, and surviving the unimaginable. Inspired by the story of the List family.
The Projects Kill
Written by Christina R. Chan & Directed by Kai Chao
with Blu Xu, Craig Ciampa, Tom Berry, and Karla Goo-Lang
In 1975, during the desegregation of the Boston Public Schools, Boston exploded with Black / White racism.
The Chinese community — employed to be a buffer zone in this fractious world — was largely forgotten . . .
until two Chinese brothers were arrested for the murder of a girl in Charlestown.
The Projects Kill is an excerpt from The Buffer Zone by Christina Chan.
Surviving Prison
Written by Lenore Glaser & Directed by Jenny S. Lee
with Stetson Marshall
“Surviving Prison” is one of a series of monologues
about how people survive the inhumanity and arbitrary control of the prison.
Looking Forward, Looking Back
Written by Karen Gallagher & Directed by Nikta Sabouri
with Karla Goo-Lang and Josh Santora
If Theo had to pick a word to describe Clarissa, it would be unstable.
If Clarissa had to pick a word to describe Theo, it would be traitor.
Suffice to say that their reunion two years after “the incident” is not a pleasant one.
Missing
Written by Mary McCullough & Directed by Stetson Marshall
with Reinaldo Vazquez and Chris Everett
A husband and wife, caught in a loop of grief, struggle with an unimaginable loss and their inability to console each other.
Llewelyn
Written by Michael Leshin & Directed by Alice Corvo
with Mordecai SJ Choi and Essie Bertain
Llewelyn, his pregnant wife Dylis, and their two year-old son flee their home in turn of the 20th century Pontypool, Wales taking refuge in Aberdare.
Gwyneth, befriends them and is engaged as their midwife. She entices Llewelyn into a months’ long tryst.
The play tracts the tragedies befalling Llewelyn and Dylis from Gwyneth’s vengeance for Llewelyn’s ending their relationship.
Revolutionary Actors
Written by Andrea Squires & Directed by Marty Kingsbury
with Nick Bennett-Zendzian, Karin Anell, Mordecai SJ Choi, and Manuel Aquiles López Torres
During the American Revolution, actor Thomas Wall and his family struggle to survive and find meaning
in a war-torn America where Congress has banned theatre. Based on a true story.
Working Privilege
Written by Rawchayl Sahadeo & Directed by Elena Toppo
with Thamanaï Jeremie and Nia Kyte-Zable
Rawchayl Sahadeo’s play Working Privilege follows the experiences of a small group of advertising and marketing company executives struggling
with the underlying impact of racism and discrimination affecting their working relationships, promotions, and professional interactions.
Unable to accept their growing hostile work environment, Raina and Jose finally start to share their feelings
and speak out to enact company changes to practices and policies. Through an array of conversations, arguments,
discomfort talking about race, and acts of resistance, the employees begin their own personal anti-racist work journeys.
Evictim
Written by Caleb Palmer & Directed by Philip Keefe
with Angela Gunn, Nick Bennett-Zendzian, and Bird Rattigan
Evictim follows a progressive American family dealing with a dilemma that is all too common —
should Saul, the eldest child and an avowed communist, be forced out of his family home or should he be allowed to stay?
Without the presence of his socialist brother and anarchist sister to back him up,
Saul has to negotiate with his liberal parents in a story of late-stage capitalism and left-wing infighting.
Girls’ Apocalypse
Written by Gabriella Francesca Ciambrone & Directed by Jenny S. Lee
with Vanessa Silva, Katherine Callaway, Caroline Forbes, Rachel Greene, and Tiffany Santiago
Four long-time friends from four different homes in four different parts of the world gather in Barcelona for the Festival La Merce-
or more specifically, to PARTY at the Festival La Merce. But what happens when the world around them starts to crumble?
Do they light their blunts, or do they survive?
Godot Shows
Written by Joel Karlinsky & Directed by Alex Leondedis
with Josh Santora, Michael Knowlton, and Caleb Palmer
Joel Karlinsky’s Godot Shows is a comedic parody of Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett.
After many misadventures and machinations it provides one possible answer to the question
of what might have taken place if Godot had actually had the courtesy and decency of showing up.
Click here to see info, videos, and photos from past festivals.