Experience live theatre in the making! In its expanded commitment to the development of new plays, MTC presents works by new and emerging playwrights both local and from across this country. Playwrights are brought in to work with leading local artists, and a response session/Q&A with the playwright, director, and actors follows each performance.
Here, audiences experience the first steps in making a new play. The full-length script-in-hand staged readings are intimate and exciting but without the costumes, props and sets that would be involved in a full production.

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.

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.

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 was born and raised in the Central Valley, the heart of California. He holds a certification in acting from Delta College in Stockton and a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Santa Clara University. With extensive training in acting, screen and playwriting, and directing, Williams is a triple-treat of innovation. In his short time in the Bay Area, he has performed in August Wilson’s Seven Guitars (City Lights Theatre Co.) alongside Aldo Billingslea and Lonnie Ford, and Breast Entanglements. He assisted directed David Edgar’s Pentecost (Santa Clara University) and directed the new work Some Restrictions Apply. He has trained with playwrights Brain Thorstenson (Summerland, Heading South) Carlos Manuel (Proper Techniques, Esno White), and screenwriter Ron Hansen (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.) He is the founder of Dark Physix Productions, a collective of artist whose goal is the performance and creation of new works.

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