2023 Fall Festival
The Playwrights
Isabel Estelle
Bleu Beckford-Burrell
Weston Gaylord
The Plays
Ashland
Lyons Pride
A Long Time Coming
After a young woman is unexpectedly diagnosed with a terminal illness and chooses to pursue Death with Dignity, she and her new partner must navigate the beginning and end of their relationship simultaneously. As the young woman's health rapidly declines, her partner and her two siblings grapple with the absurdity and hilarity of death, what it means to be family, and what it takes to let go.
The Lyons household struggling to stay afloat doesn’t find itself lacking in pride. A family play, about living, love, identity and overcoming life challenges the Lyons take you on a journey of what it means not only to be Jamaican and proud but the similarities we have in our families as immigrants in America.
A forest is growing in Norway, planted to provide paper for a set of texts that will be printed in the year 2114. Each year between 2014-2114, an author is selected to write a text for this Future Library which will be preserved, unread, until the printing. The play tells two intertwining stories of one family: a novelist in 2024 who puts his mother’s life story into words, his great-granddaughter and her son in 2114 who journey from a California farm to a Norwegian forest for the opening of the Library, and a secret that has waited a century to come to light. Examining the voices we choose to preserve and those that are lost forever, A Long Time Coming looks toward a future that holds both disaster and hope.
The Host Playwright
Beth Kander
Beth Kander is an award-winning author and playwright with tangled roots in the Midwest and Deep South. The granddaughter of immigrants, she loves exploring how worlds old and new intertwine—or collide. Beth earned a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Michigan and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mississippi University for Women.
Playwriting honors include the T. Jefferson Carey Memorial Playwriting Award (2022); Henry Award for Best New Play or Musical (2019-2020); Headwaters New Play Award (2018); Equity Library Theatre-Chicago Award (2017); Ashland New Plays Festival (2015, 2016); Eudora Welty New Play Awards (2008, 2010, 2012); and the Charles M. Getchell New Play Award (2012), among others.
Current projects include a commissioned play for Creede Repertory Theatre, a children's picture-and-recipes book called DO NOT EAT THIS BOOK (Sleeping Bear Press, 2023), and a dark and twisty novel.
A proud parent-artist, her favorite characters are her two brave, hilarious kids, and she cheers for parent-artists everywhere.
Beth is represented by Allison Hellegers at Stimola Literary Studio.
2023 Fall Festival
The Actors
Ashland by Isabel Estelle
Rachel Lindsey Routh
Vim
Jaz Hall
Wes
Kate Hurster*
Emily
Devin White*
Sebastian
Catherine Castellanos*
Susan
Jade Morgan Krische
Stage Directions
Lyons Pride by Bleu Beckford-Burrell
Kaci Hamilton
Ivory Lyons
Omolade Wey*
Egypt Lyons
Samantha Miller
Queen Lyons
Alex Michell
King Lyons
Shayne C. Powell*
Richard Lyons
Antonio Jeffries
Marquis McDonald
Leith Burke
Everton
Tim Turner
Stage Directions
A Long Time Coming by Weston Gaylord
Liisa Ivary*
Helen
Rafael Untalan*
Terry
Michaela Jose
Liza
Ellen D. Williams*
Ponderosa
Teo Briones
Alder
Jennifer Lanier*
Cypress/Librarian/Joshua/
Ticket Taker/Charlie
Emma Richardson
Stage Directions
*Appearing through an Agreement between ANPF and Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
2023 Fall Festival Photos
Bleu Beckford-Burrell, Isabel Estelle, and Weston Gaylord. ANPF 2023 Fall Festival presenting playwrights, have arrived!
2023 Fall Festival Company. All together and ready to collaborate!
Host Playwright Beth Kander and Artistic Director Jackie Apodaca.
Photo Gallery
Ashland Pre-show - Rehearsal - Talkback
Lyons Pride Pre-show - Rehearsal - Talkback
A Long Time Coming Pre-show - Rehearsal - Talkback
