Flint Rep’s annual New Works Festival is a three-day event presenting staged readings of new plays. Audience members get a chance to experience new work before anyone else and meet the artists working to bring the future of American theatre to life. This year’s lineup includes new plays by Lilly Camp, Bernardo Cubría, Elise Kibler and a musical by Michael Koomand and Christopher Dimond.

Tickets are free for all performances, but online festival registration is required.

“I’m so excited to welcome these five wildly talented writers to Flint and to share these bold new plays and a hilarious new musical with audiences.” says Flint Rep Producing Artistic Director Michael Lluberes. “This year’s festival includes fresh, innovative and inspiring new work by some of the country’s most compelling contemporary playwrights. I’m so delighted to announce that our fifth annual festival will be free for all this year thanks to a generous grant from the National Endowment of the Arts.”

THE 2024 NEW WORKS FESTIVAL LINE UP:

Pretty Basic
by Elise Kibler
Directed by Carolyn Braver
Friday, April 26, at 7:00 p.m.

In Pretty Basic, three middle school girls navigate friendship, Snapchat, and nudes over the course of an afternoon homework session to hilarious and devastating results. Kibler is an O’Neill National Playwrights Conference finalist for her play Pretty Basic and a National Young Playwrights winner for her play Tangled.

Legacy
by Lilly Camp
Directed by Kathryn Walsh
Saturday, April 27, at 2:00 p.m.

This play follows nine former members of a college female rowing team attending a reunion. Under the expected drama of old crushes and former rivalries lie deeper wounds, and a decade’s-old collective traumatic experience resurfaces and demands they face it as adults. Camp has also been recognized by the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and the Yale Drama Series, among others.

The Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latine Vote
by Bernardo Cubría
Directed by Michael John Garcés
Saturday, April 27, at 7:00 p.m.

In this biting comedy, THE Political Party hires a doctor of Latinx studies to help them understand the Hispanic/Latino/Latina/Latinx/Latine vote before the next election. Cubría is the winner of the 2021 Smith Prize for Political Theatre and the BETC Generations Award. He penned the feature screenplay Guerrero, which Gina Rodriguez is attached to direct and star in and is also a writer on Season 3 of Acapulco on Apple +.

The Break
Music by Michael Kooman, book and lyrics by Christopher Dimond
Directed by Joshua Morgan
Sunday, April 28, at 2:00 p.m.

The Break is a rock musical for everyone who’s asked the question, “What If…?” A couple agrees to take a 30-day break to date other people, and at the end of the month they’ll finally tie the knot…or will they? Kooman & Dimond are an Emmy-nominated writing team for the stage and screen. Their most recent musical, Romantics Anonymous, debuted to rave reviews at Shakespeare’s Globe. They wrote more than 150 songs for Vampirina, an animated musical TV series that airs on the Disney Channel and Disney Junior, reaching over 100 million viewers in 115 countries.

Registration for the festival is open at https://thefim.org/event/new-works-festival.