Welcome back to YEAR 5 of The Boston New Works Festival! The Festival is Boston’s stomping grounds for fully produced NEW WORKS by LOCAL Playwrights, performed by LOCAL Artists, celebrating LOCAL audiences. Come see a new show, or see them all! Join us this June campus-wide at the Boston Center for the Arts and the Calderwood Pavilion for Boston New Works Festival 2025!
Fangirl
by Luna Abréu-Santana
directed by Alexis Elisa Macedo
Fangirl tells the story of how a hit teen drama, its passionate fanbase, and an online catfishing scheme can turn even the most resistant into a hardcore super-fan.
Jackie Gonzalez is obsessed with Star Thieves, a hit musical TV show about the trials and tribulations of band life. While considered a “loser” at school, Jackie is lovingly embraced by her online fandom community: the “Thieves.” In an attempt to publicly humiliate Jackie, high school bully, Quinn, devises a catfishing scheme where she poses as “Willow,” a new stan on the block. As Quinn becomes emotionally invested in the fictional world of Star Thieves, Willow and Jackie’s relationship progresses and they plan to meet at the fandom event of the year: Comic Con. What will happen when Jackie realizes that her online bestie is actually the bully from her everyday life?
Guts
by Rachel Greene
directed by Shalee Cole Mauleon
Can six contestants on a hit reality weight-loss competition find self-love and communal healing in a place designed to make them hate themselves and their bodies? Do they have the guts?
The hit reality weight-loss competition show GUTS is back with its BIGGEST! SEASON! EVER! There will be grueling challenges, verbal abuses, and – of course – the fan-favorite weekly weigh-ins. But behind the camera rivalries are forming, romances are blossoming, and friendships are being found in the most unlikely of places. Can these six contestants find self-love, communal healing, and liberation in a place designed to make them hate themselves and their bodies? Do they have the guts?
Mox Nox
by Patrick Gabridge
directed by Alexandra Smith
Mox Nox – In a world of rising water, everyone desperately needs love and higher ground.
In a world of rising water, two sisters reunite at their family home. Mira, the caretaker sister, had to weather her mother’s death alone, and holds every childhood slight so close that she is literally burning from the inside out. Sister Deedee has returned to bring her fiancé, Pike, to higher ground, even as her memory vanishes. A play of lyrical magic and visual surprise, with characters who desperately need love and dry land.
Choose & Celebrate
by Catherine Giorgetti
directed by Devon Whitney
When violence permeates the 1970s queer community in Boston, Teresa’s activism and personal life converge and her relationships are thrown into disarray.
In 1973 Boston, Teresa grapples with the realities of gay life: how to support her best friends Eric and Christopher in their union ceremony, how to deal with a homophobic straight friend who doesn’t understand her, and what to do when violence permeates her community. Inspired by stories from Gay Community News and the real queer people who lived in 1973 Boston.
Creature Feature
by Micah Pflaum
directed by Hazel J. Peters
A young man transforming into a monster flees the austere citadel of his birth to seek the sorcerer of the woods.
Creature Feature is a deconstruction of John Milton’s court masque “A Masque Performed at Ludlow Castle,” (commonly known as “Comus.”). The Shepherds of the Citadel warn their charges never to venture into the nearby woods. They tell the story of a sorcerer who dwells there, corrupting travelers into monsters. But for an acolyte hiding his own transformation, braving those woods could be his path to answers. He discovers a realm of wild magic and revelry, but when his faithful friends pursue him into apparent danger, he must confront his fear that he will bring disaster to all he loves.
Hitch
by James McLindon
directed by Donovan Holt
A white man in his 30s learns that the young biracial hitchhiker he has picked up is not at all what she seemed … and vice versa.
Lane, a 36-year-old white man, picks up a young biracial hitchhiker in upstate New York on a summer’s morning. Dee is wary, thinking he’s hoping for a casual hook-up, but she also desperately needs a ride; he says he stopped because she looks scared, an impression that is soon borne out. As they drive on, the lies they tell each other about who they are, where they’ve been and where they’re going, slowly begin to unravel as they learn from each other about missing fathers and missing daughters and families. In the end, both realize they need to face their demons … and decide whether to turn back or keep going.
How to Kill a Goat
by Mireya Sánchez-Maes
directed by Daniela Luz Sánchez
“Packed with humor, music, and memory, How to Kill a Goat is a celebration of the stories we tell and the people who tell them.”
“The best way to get to know New Mexico is through its music!” In How to Kill a Goat, Mariana takes the audience on a wild ride through her life as a bilingual Chicana in the borderlands. Packed with humor, music, and vivid characters, Mariana shares stories of slaughtering goats, fitting bras, falling in love, and facing loss. With each vignette, the play asks: Why do we tell stories? And how do we keep our culture alive?
Daily Schedule
