Boston Court Pasadena’s New Play Reading Festival features Luis Alfaro’s “The Labours” (Photo – Boston Court Pasadena)
Since 2004, Boston Court Pasadena has championed bold, risk-taking new work through its New Play Reading Festival.
By Melanie Hooks
This year’s festival runs May 14–17, 2026, with plays that span everything from the search for answers and battles with monsters to the complexities of military and civilian life.
Experience adventurous new work at its earliest stage, and be among the first to encounter stories you won’t find anywhere else in Southern California.
The Line-Up
– Thursday, May 14, 7:30 pm
The Labours
by Luis Alfaro
directed by Chay Yew
In The Labours, Luis Alfaro’s bold reimagining of Euripides’ Herakles, the mythic hero becomes Era (Spanish for “was”), a female soldier navigating the disorienting transition from military service back to civilian life.
– Saturday, May 16, 2:00 pm
Agape
by Agyeiwaa Asante
directed by Velani Dibba
In the basement of the In Guiding Light Charismatic Church of Silver Spring, Maryland, the young women of the Agape Drama Ministry shine each week performing biblical skits to edify their congregation. But when one of their own returns after a long absence with new ideas, their fragile ecosystem, and their relationships, begin to crack.
A moving, deeply funny coming-of-age story about the pressures of college, crises of faith, arrested development, and reckoning with not having all the answers.
– Sunday, May 17, 2:00 pm
The Frankenstein Project
by E.M. Lewis
directed by Jessica Kubzansky
In 1816, Mary Shelley grieves the loss of her child and conjures a creature, and his godlike creator, in her masterpiece, Frankenstein. In the present, Mary Lattimore mourns her mother and forms an unlikely bond with a sentient AI robot her father has created and brought home.
The Frankenstein Project explores the monsters we battle, the monsters we create, and the monsters we sometimes become.
> Buy tickets for any or all three shows online or in person/by phone through the Box Office at (626) 683-6801.
New Play Reading Festival 2026 May 14, 16, and 17 Location Boston Court Pasadena 70 N. Mentor Ave. Pasadena, CA 91106 For tickets and showtimes, visit website here.
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