Echo Theater Company offers readings of new plays about sexuality and identity

The Echo Theater Company, dedicated to creating new work for the theater, presents LABFest 2021, a virtual reading festival of three new plays by Brian Otaño, Roger Q. Mason, and Christopher Sullivan that were developed in the company’s 2020 Playwright’s LAB. LABFest takes place with two offerings on Sat., Jan. 16, and one on Sun., Jan. 17.

Tara by Brian Otaño airs on Sat., Jan. 16 at 3 p.m. PT / 6 p.m. ET. Directed by Hannah Wolf, it features Dana Berger, Leandro Cano, Eileen Galindo, Brian Henderson, and Gloria Ines. When 30-year-old Ricky Ramos is named as the first victim of a teacher under investigation for sexual abuse, Ricky’s skewed perspective of the relationship is turned upside down, and his family is forced to contend with their complicity.

California Story: A Faustian Preter-Capitalist Scream by Roger Q. Mason airs Sat., Jan. 16 at 7:30 p.m. PT / 10:30 p.m. ET, directed by Michael Alvarez. Based on the true story of Afro-Mexican politician and landowner Pío Pico, who attempted to carve a place for himself in 1830s-1860s California during the era of Manifest Destiny, Mason infuses elements of traditional theater, magical realism, and physical theater to explore the racial, personal and familial price one pays when buying into majority culture’s privilege at the expense of their own integrity.

SK8ER BOIZ by Christopher Sullivan continues the festival on Sun., Jan. 17 at 3 p.m. PT / 6 p.m. ET. Directed by Shaina Rosenthal, it features Steve Boyer, Eric Neil Gutierrez, Alex Herrald, Anisha Jagannathan, and Seth Kirschner. In this darkly comedic play, two teens are forced to hide their romantic relationship amidst the homophobic world of professional skateboarding as they navigate their fluid sexual identities into their adult lives.

Admission to all these events is free. Get the Zoom links at www.EchoTheaterCompany.com.