For 26 years, the Occidental New Works Festival has paired student playwrights with LA performers, student actors and professional guest directors. Performed at Keck Theater Feb. 21-22, this year’s festival featured a comedic trifecta — “Early Days” by Eliana Joftus (junior), “The Water Cooler” by Quinn Patwardhan (sophomore) and “Oh, Clarence!” by Alexandria Wells (junior).
Resident Professor of Theater & Performance Studies Laural Meade said she has been involved with the festival since its inception, serving as the faculty producer. Due to her concurrent involvement in Occidental’s spring musical — “Head Over Heels” — Meade said this year’s festival presented a more streamlined lineup than years past. According to Meade, the slimmed-down slate enriched each play’s depth, technicality and quality.
“Usually we do four or five plays, this year we’re doing three,” Meade said via email. “In light of that, though, I scheduled more rehearsals than we normally do for each of the plays, and we added design elements beyond lighting — costume looks, props, a few set pieces.”
According to Meade, while most of Occidental’s Theater and Performance Studies program nurtures budding actors and technicians, the New Works Festival spotlights the people who seed it all — the writers.
“Playwrights are, in many forms of theater, the only originating artist,” Meade said. “They write the recipe or design the blueprint that all of the other artists involved are going to interpret.”
Finn Crumlish (sophomore), a student actor in “Oh, Clarence!” said he enters each role with a deep-seated respect for the script. While actors interpret, inform and impact a production, Crumlish said their work ultimately stems from the playwright’s vision — every choice onstage rooted in the words of the page.
“I think a lot of times in theater, film — any medium that has actors in it — we have a tendency to highlight actors because those are the people who are seen,” Crumlish said. “But I see acting as the conduit to get to what is written and perform it live.”
According to Crumlish, the New Works Festival intensifies his commitment to the playwright.
“I feel like I have a special responsibility because this is the first time this piece has been performed and it’s by a new writer, and I really want to help bring their vision alive,” Crumlish said.
Two-time New Works Festival playwright Patwardhan said that while his script grounded the live staged reading, it was the actors’ engagement with the text — adding complexity and uncovering plot possibilities — that built upon his foundation.
“Getting all of this feedback from actors is really helpful because they really see the character and see the world from their character’s lens,” Patwardhan said. “Sometimes when I am trying to think of the world from everybody’s angle, I kind of forget about one person’s motivations.”
Raised on a ’90s sitcom comedy media diet, Patwardhan said he credits his parents for his farcical flair. Patwardhan said he caught the comedic bug early, and it hasn’t let go. Across video games, satirical articles, graphics and screenplays, Patwardhan said his absurdist, comedic style infects every medium he touches.
“Pretty much everything I’ve done is comedy; I could never write drama and I would never want to write drama,” Patwardhan said.
According to Meade, this year’s submissions skewed comedic, with many starring a trio of young adults. Interpreting it as a sign, Meade said she decided to embrace the “resonant kismet” — much to Crumlish’s delight.
“It feels good to make people laugh; like that’s one of the best feelings in the world: tell a joke and have people laugh at it,” Crumlish said.
According to Crumlish, comedy is not only about engendering joy. Crumlish said the genre offers a low-lift way to confront convoluted, unsettling themes that audiences might otherwise avoid. Whether interrogating social injustices or critiquing authoritarian regimes, Crumlish said laughter carries political power.
“Comedy has such a unique way of negotiating hard themes with levity while not dismissing the truth of the circumstance,” Crumlish said. “Oftentimes, the only way we can truly criticize something or understand it is to laugh at it.”
After revisions, table readings, professional feedback and world debuts, Meade said the Keck curtain has closed on the 2026 New Works Festival — but the stories’ impact, and the collaborative spirit that brought them to life, linger. According to Meade, the festival is more than screenwriting and professional experience: it’s a testament to the creativity, dedication and empathy that define Occidental students.
“In the words of playwright Thornton Wilder, [theater] is the greatest of all art forms because it is ‘the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being,’” Meade said. “I remain grateful for how Oxy students support each other, how they commit to pushing boundaries and how they care about the world in all its parts and pieces.”
Contact Zoë Beauchamp at beauchamp@oxy.edu
