SUMMER SEASON

Seeds of Time Festival

This groundbreaking three-week festival will present six teams of artists exploring and reenvisioning world classics. These weeklong workshops will culminate in interactive public events, inviting audiences to witness the evolution of classic narratives and engage in conversations about their relevance today. Special attention will be given to teaching the insights and skills of dramaturgy.

Scroll down to learn more about the six festival performances and the artist behind each piece.

Tri Sestry

A bold reimagining of Chekhov’s
Three Sisters by Robert Parsons
Sat, July 19 @ 1:00pm
Sun, July 20 @ 6:30pm

Tri Sestry—Russian for Three Sisters—is a bold reimagining of the Chekhov classic, seen through the eyes of Anfisa, the overlooked housekeeper who has been trapped inside every production of the play since its 1901 premiere at the Moscow Art Theatre. In a cosmic twist, Anfisa is “quantum-leaped” into the body of Mama Juana, a Mexican housekeeper in a present-day Texas border town. Determined to escape a century of thankless servitude, Juana draws on her mysterious powers to rewrite the ending of Three Sisters—hoping to finally break the cycle and set herself free. While honoring the emotional core of Chekhov’s original, Tri Sestry spins the familiar into the fantastical, mixing 70s television tropes, Mariachi classics, Journey’s greatest hits, and ghostly projections into a theatrical universe where time loops, lives blur, and history itself might be coaxed into letting go. The result is a cross-dimensional fever dream of birth, death, memory, and reawakening—where physical laws bend, and repetition gives way to release.

Where’s Mama?

Reclaiming the voices of Shakespeare’s
missing mothers by Cathleen Riddley
Sat, July 19 @ 7:30pm
Sun, July 20 @ 1:00pm

In Where’s Mama?, the silence of Shakespeare’s missing mothers becomes a powerful call to reimagine who gets to shape a legacy. This evocative solo piece centers Black women—absent from the Bard’s pages yet essential to the lives they birthed—by conjuring the unseen mothers of Helena, Miranda, Ophelia, and the daughters of King Lear. What might have happened if they had voices? If they had power? If they had presence? Through poetic monologues, critical fabulation, and ancestral storytelling, Where’s Mama? creates alternate worlds where these women are no longer hidden, forgotten, or erased. Instead, they guide, protect, provoke, and transform the stories we thought we knew. With tenderness and fury, this work examines absence as a form of violence—and presence as radical reclamation. For anyone ready to rethink Shakespeare through the eyes of the women he left behind, this is your invitation to witness what has always been waiting in the margins.

Leili and Majnun

An epic love story of star-crossed lovers
retold by Torange Yeghiazarian
Sat, July 26 @ 1:00pm
Sun, July 27 @ 6:30pm

A fusion of ancient poetry and contemporary performance, Leili & Majnun is a dynamic staging of the legendary 12th-century Persian epic by Nizami Ganjavi through bilingual storytelling, physical theater, and a lyrical score that blends Iranian, Arabic, Kurdish, and Western musical traditions. This ensemble-based adaptation centers Leili’s perspective —often sidelined in traditional tellings—and uses the form of Naghali, Iran’s classical mode of epic narration, to break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience. and music composed by Sirvan Manhoobi, the piece creates a vivid theatrical landscape that feels both timeless and urgent. Whether exploring the feminist reclamation of myth, the challenge of staging poetry, or the hybridity of cross-cultural aesthetics, Leili & Majnun invites audiences into a conversation between centuries, languages, and worlds.

Rap Monologues

Shakespeare meets hip-hop in a lyrical showdown
in a solo performance by Dr. Austin Dean Ashford
Sat, July 26 @ 7:30pm
Sun, July 27 @ 1:00pm

What if Shakespeare met hip-hop in a storage unit break room? Rap Monologues is a razor-sharp solo performance where classical verse and rap lyrics go toe-to-toe in a rhythm-fueled showdown. At the center is a Safe Guys storage unit trainer who moonlights as a lyrical alchemist, transforming Shakespeare’s most iconic monologues into beat-driven declarations of identity, power, and legacy. With humor, swagger, and an undeniable love of language, this one-person powerhouse cracks open the shared DNA of iambic pentameter and 16-bar verses, inviting audiences to hear the classics—and hip-hop—in a whole new way. Whether you’re a Shakespeare lover, a rap fan, or just down for some fierce, verse-based storytelling, Rap Monologues is a theatrical remix you won’t want to miss.

The Rosaline Play

A thrilling remix of Shakespeare’s
Romeo & Juliet by Leigh M. Marshall
Sat, Aug 2 @ 1:00pm
Sun, Aug 3 @ 6:30pm

What if Rosaline—not Juliet—was the most tragic figure in Verona? In this bold and haunting reimagining of Romeo & Juliet, Rosaline Velasco is a rising A&R powerhouse at a major music label who has just discovered Weapons of Self-Destruction, a freshly-turned-twenty-one rap duo whose meteoric rise threatens to crash into the darker side of the industry: fentanyl, exploitation, and profit-driven martyrdom. As Rosaline tries to save them from themselves, she collides with a corporate machine more interested in legends than lives. Inspired by the real-world deaths of SoundCloud stars like Juice WRLD and the industry’s fetishization of “dead genius,” this play grapples with the commodification of love, the romanticization of addiction, and what it means to be truly accountable in a system that profits off of tragedy. Part love story, part corporate thriller, part elegy, THE ROSALINE PLAY dares to ask: what does intimacy mean in a world that pushes pleasure-seeking to the point of no return?

othello.exe

A speculative remix of Shakespeare’s
Othello by Julius Rea
Sat, Aug 2 @ 7:30pm
Sun, Aug 3 @ 1:00pm

When a major theatre company replaces a Black actor with a humanoid robot to avoid “burdening” anyone with the trauma of portraying Othello, the robot’s programmer is tasked with rewriting its understanding of Black identity. But as she dives deeper into the code—and the play—they both spiral into a surreal interrogation of race, technology, performance, and power. Othello.exe is a sharp, speculative remix of Shakespeare’s tragedy, where artificial intelligence meets real-world bias, and long-standing questions about representation, audience, and authenticity come to the surface. This project marks the playwright’s first Shakespeare adaptation, emerging from an urgent curiosity about how the stage continues to grapple with what was once called DEI—through the double lens of Race and AI.

AeJay is a dynamic and visionary performance artist, scholar, educator, and activist with a passion for transforming the theatrical landscape. Their work focuses on decolonizing the theatrical canon, advancing the Black avant-garde, and pioneering queer political performance practices. As a PhD student in Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, AeJay’s scholarship delves into performances of prayer and praise as timeless liberatory acts, as well as exploring practices of Black and Queer cultural safety through performance in America.

Robert Parsons (Tri Sestry) has been an actor, teacher and director in the Bay Area and beyond for over 25 years. Writing credits include the adaptations Vanya Without Bullets (based on Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov), and Tri Sestry, (in development and based on Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov) Bay Area acting credits include work at Marin Shakespeare Company, Marin Theatre, American Conservatory Theatre, Magic Theatre, Aurora Theatre Company, Shotgun Players, SF Playhouse, Berkeley Rep, TheatreWorks, Word for Word, Cutting Ball, San Jose Stage Company and Center Rep. Regional credits include work at Ford’s Theatre, Ahmanson Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Huntington Theatre Company, Alley Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company and The Sydney Festival. Film Credits include: Freaky Tales, Sunday Errand, Fairyland, Freeland , Prufrock (Pixar) and Black August. https://www.robertparsonsactor.com/

Cathleen Riddley, she/her (Where’s Mama?) is a Black woman, a deeply honest and loyal friend, and a member of the neurospicy clan. She prides herself in being a great colleague and collaborator, a dedicated mom, a captivating storyteller, a giver of the best hugs when someone wants one, and possessor of an open and welcoming heart for difference, diversity, creativity, and play.  She’s an activist, a “good trouble” maker, a certified ASL interpreter, and earned an MA in Sociology from UPenn. As an actor she is a multiple award-winner in the San Francisco Bay Area (and beyond) who has performed at ACT, Aurora, SF Playhouse, and Cal Shakes, to name just a few.  She is an Artistic Associate at Marin Shakes, and a company member with Shotgun Players and PlayGround.  Cathleen is expanding her horizons by adding emerging director, dramaturg, playwright, and teaching artist to her skill set.  None of us are free until all of us are free.

Torange Yeghiazarian (Leili and Majnun) is an award-winning playwright and director passionate about building community through theater. Her artistic practice reflects her values of radical hospitality and inclusiveness aimed at disrupting stereotypes of the Middle East both within the community and outside of it. A transplant from the 1979 Iranian revolution, Torange believes that life is inherently political and that the personal and the global are inseparable. Her plays frequently explore the cultural divide with tenderness and humor from an immigrant woman’s perspective. As a director, Torange’s focus has been on new plays, experimenting with Middle Eastern performance traditions, and staging poetry. Dubbed the “Margo Jones–founding-mother-figure of Middle Eastern–American theatre”, Torange founded Golden Thread Productions, the first American theatre company devoted to the Middle East, and served as its Executive Artistic Director for twenty-five years. Plays published in New Iranian Plays, Performing Iran, Salaam.Peace Anthology of Middle Eastern American Drama.

Dr. Austin Dean Ashford (Rap Monologues) is a multidisciplinary theatre maker, playwright, and performer whose work blends classical forms with hip hop, Afrofuturism, and poetic storytelling. A two-time MFA graduate and recent Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Arts, Austin’s award-winning solo and ensemble work has toured nationally and internationally, earning recognition from the Kennedy Center, Amazon Prime, and the U.S. State Department as a Hip Hop Cultural Ambassador. His plays challenge tradition while celebrating legacy—centering Black voices, memory, and imagination. Currently serving as Director of Interdisciplinary Arts at Flanner House and is an Artist in Residence at Z Space in San Francisco. Austin’s passion for Shakespeare is reframed through rhythm, resistance, and radical joy—making verse resonate with new generations. With a foundation in performance, debate, and education, he empowers communities through story and song, always in pursuit of what art can free.

Leigh M. Marshall (The Rosaline Play) is a multidisciplinary performer, writer, and editor. Currently, she is a resident playwright at the Playwrights Foundation, a member of Crowded Fire Theatre’s Resilience & Development Lab, and the Theater & Film Editor online for BOMB Magazine. Her work has been selected for Berkeley Repertory Theater’s Ground Floor Residency, the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival, Iowa New Play Festival, Examined Life Conference, Live Design International, and the Prague Quadrennial. BA: Stanford University. MFA: Iowa Playwrights Workshop.

Julius Rea, he/they (othello.exe) is a Bay Area-based playwright, journalist, producer, grant writer and conflict resolution facilitator. With a degree in Philosophy from SFSU, Rea co-founded journalism theatre company The Forum Collective in 2018 and cooperatively-owned arts magazine Substrate Arts in 2022. He is also a previous Theatre Bay Area Arts Leadership Residency artist, which allowed him to work with Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. Dedicated to holistic healing and equity, they create new projects on underrepresented narratives based on deeply-rooted research, interviews, and dramaturgy. Rea received a 2023-24 Creative Corps Initiative grantee to further develop The Day the Sky Turned Orange.