🎠NEW! Los Angeles Theatre Newsletter
The Helen Borgers Theater home of the Long Beach Shakespeare Company 2026 New Works Festival begins this weekend. Produced by LBSC Artistic Director Holly Leveque the festival celebrates the voices of today featuring original plays from emerging and established writers.
🎠NEW! Los Angeles Theatre Newsletter
This festival is a platform where daring stories, fresh perspectives, and innovative artistry meet the stage for the first time. Each piece carries the potential to spark dialogue, inspire connection, and carve out a lasting place in theatrical history.
Hold On
By: Robert Weibezahl
Directed by Cameron Kauffman
The dates for performances will be: 5/15 8 PM and 5/17 1 PM
As a 25th high school reunion goes on in the gym down the hall, HEATHER WREN wanders into what she thinks is an empty classroom to sneak a smoke. There, she finds GREG ALDERSEN, a math teacher, at work. Heather finds it odd that Greg, a teacher who clearly has also ducked out of the reunion, is working. Greg immediately recognizes Heather, who is a minor rock star, returning to her hometown for the first time. At first, she does not recognize him at her former friend and confidante from high school. As the action of the play unfolds through the night, the complicated past relationship between these two damaged characters comes to light, and long kept secrets and repressed truths begin to surface. Beneath the sharp- tongued humor of these erstwhile friends lies a poignant sense of emotional need and unfulfilled destiny.
Cast:
Greg Aldersen: Kieran Ragland
Heather Wren: Rachel Speth
LUDLOW MASSACRE
By: Darren Andrew Nash
Directed by Benjamin Pohlmeier
The dates for performances will be: 5/16 8 PM and 5/17 4 PM
A tenacious reporter imbeds with the striking miners and becomes more and involved in a dangerous and bloody clash with powerful entities including one of the riches men in the world- John D. Rockefeller Jr.
Cast:
Luca Nicoletti – EMMA
Leonardo Lerma – LOUIS / ROCKERFELLER LAWYER
Justin Valine – CHARLES / COMMISSIONER WEINSTOCK
Stacey Xia – FRANNY / PREGNANT WIFE / RED CROSS WORKER / REPORTER 3
Vida So – MAGGIE / REPORTER 2
Sebastian Adame – LIEUTENANT / MINER 2
Jerome Wallace – STEVE / NATHANIEL EVERHARDT
Anne Gundry – MOTHER JONES / PEARL / NARRATOR
Alan Bornemann – WILL / FOREMAN / SERGEANT / CHAIRMAN WALSH
Kieran Ragland – CHIEF EDITOR / RENADO / GUARD /SOLDIER 2 /JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR
Brandon Silva – FOREIGN MINER / DOC CORWIN / LANZA / JUAN / MINER 1 / SOLDIER 1 / REPORTER 1
A Wire In Mind
By Michael J.M. Canas
Directed by Rose Kim
The dates of the show will be on 5/16 2 PM and 5/17 8 PM
The Bacall family take care of their patriarch of the house, a once lauded surgeon now in the stages of Alzheimer. Their daughter, Alexis, uses a home security app which records the various activities that occur throughout the house. Alexis begins altering the app in order to preserve her Father’s memories, which slowly convince her to implant false memories to build an idealized version of her father.
Cast:
Holly Leveque: ALEXIS BACALL
Alan Bornemann: ANDREW BACALL
Paola Esteras: WENDELL BACALL
James Dean: HOMER
About Long Beach Shakespeare Company
Founded in 1990, the Long Beach Shakespeare Company is Long Beach’s only year-round classical theatre company, dedicated to producing high-quality performances while fostering literacy, education, and community engagement through the arts.
2026 Theater Fans’ Choice Awards – Live Stats
Best Direction of a Musical – Top 3
1.
Michael Arden – The Lost Boys
33.1% of votes
2.
Tim Jackson – Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)
15.5% of votes
3.
Lear deBessonet – Ragtime
10.6% of votes
