The Artists at Play Readings annually develop and present two new plays in staged readings. This process provides a forum for playwrights to share their emerging work and workshop their plays with a team of directors, dramaturgs and actors.
who hurt you?
by Katie Đỗ
directed by Katherine Chou
May 24, 2025 at 2 pm
who hurt you? centers Ellie Nguyễn, an ambitious Vietnamese-American actor, as she seems to lose everything she’s ever wanted to a Half-White/Half-Vietnamese actor. As her dreams, nightmares, and realities fluctuate with her self-sabotage and insecurity, Ellie’s well-being takes a toll on herself and those around her. The consequences of Ellie’s decisions force a change in the world, one where they could all thrive or cease to exist, or both.
True / Story, based on a true story
by A. Rey Pamatmat
directed by Reena Dutt
May 31, 2025 at 2pm
Can you write a play about your estranged, incarcerated father dying during a global pandemic without it becoming trauma porn? Should you even try? One playwright, two actors, and a fully meta, semi-autobiographical struggle to make it to the “End of Play” while examining life, death, and art along the way … without feeling exploited by American Theatre.
Meet the Playwrights
Katie Đỗ (who hurt you?) (she/her) is a Vietnamese American woman with a mouth from New Jersey. She’s a proud alum of the Sống Collective’s Việt Writers Lab and the Public’s Emerging Writers Group. Đỗ is also the inaugural recipient of Merrimack Repertory Theatre’s Sokhary Chau Playwriting Fellowship. Her plays have been developed by South Coast Repertory (Pacific Playwrights Festival), Atlantic Theater Company (MixFest), The Sống Collective, The Public Theater, and Orlando Shakes. love you long time (already) is also featured on the 2023 Kilroy’s Web. She also wrote on the Netflix show Partner Track and is in development with MACRO.
A. Rey Pamatmat’s (True / Story, baased on a true story) plays include Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them (Actors Theatre of Louisville), after all the terrible things I do (Milwaukee Rep), House Rules (Ma-Yi), Thunder Above, Deeps Below (Second Generation), A Spare Me (Waterwell), and DEVIANT. His work has been translated into Spanish and Russian, performed in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Russia, and published by Concord Theatricals, Playscripts, Cambria Press, and Vintage. Rey is the former co-director of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab, and was a PoNY, Hodder, and Princess Grace Fellow.
Artists at Play — A Los Angeles-Based Theatre Collective 