In its expanded commitment to the development of new plays, MTC’s Nu Werkz series presents works by new and emerging playwrights both local and from across the country. MTC brings in playwrights to work with leading local artists in full-length, script-in-hand staged readings. Audiences experience the intimacy and excitement of new play development. A question and answer session with the playwright, director, and actors often follows each performance.  

 

All performances are FREE and are performed in MTC’s Lieberman Theatre. Call the MTC Box Office at 415.388.5208 or click below for tickets.

Please note that all Nu Werkz performances have festival seating (non-reserved).

The Nu Werkz Series is made possible by the generous support of N.J. “Sky” Cooper.

Buy Tickets
Four years after the passing of the African American family’s matriarch, the children are still coping with the loss. The patriarch is a rolling stone bred from the ideas of the Black Power movement. But in between these monuments of the American family, their son and daughter are trying to define their own lives outside the legacy of their parents. The young man desires to to go to Stanford, however he is struggling to see the way to his future. He must find a place in the world that is built on the shoulders of his family, yet is his own. A. Zell Williams’ Blood/Money is a powerful and insightful 21st century reaction piece to August Wilson’s influential 20th century masterpiece Fences.

A. Zell Williams
A. Zell Williams was one of two inaugural African-American Fellows with Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, where he currently resides.  He was born and raised in the San Joaquin Valley of California and started his career as an actor in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Full-length works include: BLOOD/MONEY, A Civil Play, Shooter, and The Straight Dope.  One-acts include: Complicating Matters, Night of the Spinster’s Greener Days, The Woman I Live With, Jumpin’, Hotter Than July, Inequality and A La King (published through One-Act Play Depot).  Zell holds a BA in Theatre Arts from Santa Clara University and was a member of the 2006 Writer’s Pool for PlayGround.
Elsewhere

Her mother is in remission from breast cancer, her father has just died, and she’s on her ninth nanny. Everything in Nina’s well-ordered life seems to be spinning out of control until she makes a radical decision to take matters into her own hands. As her family falls apart around her, she stubbornly moves forward, dreaming of a place where hard choices don’t have to be made. Written by playwright and novelist Kate Walbert, ELSEWHERE is a moving, poignant comedy about desperate times and desperate measures.

Kate Walbert is a playwright and novelist, whose 2004 novel Our Kind was a finalist for the National Book Award.  Her other published works include The Gardens of Kyoto and Where She Went.  She is also the author of the plays Quiet, She Said and Year of the Woman.  Kate has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and an O. Henry Prize, among other literary distinctions.  She teaches writing at Yale University and lives in New York City with her family.

Stay tuned for announcement of the date and selections of more Nu Werkz readings this season!