Barbara George, Girl Blue, and Yoj™ at the L.A. Writers’ Workshop Festival 2022

Since its inception in 2005, Center Theatre Group has supported a cohort of playwrights to help them author new plays with the L.A. Writers’ Workshop. This year 10 women—Jami Brandli, June Carryl, Penelope Lowder, Lisa Ramirez, Jessica Ko, Pia Shah, Judy Soo Hoo, Delanna Studi, Julie Taiwo Quarles, and Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera—have worked together over the past few months under the guidance of Associate Artistic Director Luis Alfaro to write 10 plays, which will be presented for the first time in front of audience members at the L.A. Writers’ Workshop Festival over the course of two weekends.

The works presented for this year’s festival include:

June Carryl, drawn to the intersections of race, gender, and ethnicity, explores the mind of artist and activist Nina Simone in Girl Blue.

Penelope Lowder takes on the challenge to decode the human condition with Barbara George. This 90-minute nightmare follows a Crenshaw realtor who needs to figure out how she can stay visible in a community where she is slowly being erased.

Inspired by her Nigerian father and her American mother along with the interactions between the West and Africa, Julie Taiwo Quarles’ play Yoj™ is about two couples debating the trademarking of African culture.