Theater Notebook: Moxie Theatre’s new season includes world premiere, veteran women playwrights

San Diego’s Moxie Theatre quietly kicked off its 2021-22 season this month with a filmed play, but the rest of the four-show lineup will be presented for live audiences at its theater in Rolando.

Jennifer Eve Thorn, Moxie’s executive artistic director, said the upcoming season will continue to celebrate the company’s mission of creating more diverse and honest images of women. Its four women playwrights include an emerging writer, a celebrated Latina and two of America’s best-known, award-winning authors Paula Vogel and Jane Anderson.

Thorn said she’s excited to reopen the theater after a year that she described as productive, rewarding, exhausting and sometimes heartbreaking. A week after the pandemic shutdown in March 2020, Moxie began producing shows online. The company’s Zoomfest debuted 12 new plays in 12 weeks, then it partnered with Common Ground Theatre to produce four more new plays in the “Dinner and a Zoom” series.

After that, the company did two filmed plays, “The Niceties” and “I and You,” as well as the recent co-production of “The Mango Tree” for the San Diego Black Artist Collective’s Juneteenth festival. Thorn said with donations and a PPP grant from the government, she was grateful to be able to continue paying Moxie’s six-member, all-women staff during the pandemic. But there were struggles along the way.

During the long shutdown, the theater in an El Cajon Boulevard strip mall was vandalized and suffered damage due to a burst water pipe. The shopping center was also recently sold and Moxie’s new landlord is raising the rent by 40 percent. Also, the new AB5 state labor law has the potential to double production costs. Thorn said many small theaters are hoping AB5 rules are relaxed, or it could put many of them out of business.

“Most of us are trying to figure out how to make any theater,” she said. “Lots of us are just waiting to see what happens if somebody else is able to open up before them.”

Subscriptions to Moxie’s season are now on sale, with single tickets available for its opening production, which is now playing. For details, call (858) 598-7620 or visit moxietheatre.com/season17/. Here’s the schedule:

“The Mango Tree”: San Diego’s Bibi Mama wrote, co-directed and starred in this filmed solo play first presented in June by San Diego Black Artist Collective. It’s a theatrical fable about a grieving West African girl who attempts to trick a river goddess into bringing back her drowned twin brother. Streaming July 26-Aug.1 and Aug. 2-8. $25. Through Aug. 8.

“The Mineola Twins”: The company’s first live onstage production since February 2020 is Paula Vogel’s 1999 satire, billed as “a comedy in six scenes, three dreams and five wigs.” It chronicles 40 years in the relationship between twins Myra and Myrna, who are on opposite ends of the political, social, religious and cultural spectrum. San Diego actor Samantha Ginn will play both twins. Thorn said this is a play she’s wanted to direct since she read it two decades ago. “I feel like there’s never been a more relevant time to do this play. It expresses the political divide in our culture in a really fun and splashy way.” Sept. 26-Oct. 24.

“Sapience”: Moxie is co-presenting the rolling world premiere of Colombian-born playwright Diana Burbano’s dark comedy about a primatologist named Elsie who hopes to prove an orangutan named Wookie can speak human language. Meanwhile her nephew, A.J., who’s on the autism spectrum and non-verbal, creates his own way to communicate with Wookie. The play was workshopped at San Diego Repertory Theatre’s Latinx New Play Festival last year. Thorn said the “edgy and beautifully written play” will feature actors who are on the autism spectrum. Jan. 23-Feb. 20.

“Mother of the Maid”: Jane Anderson’s 2015 play re-tells the story of Joan of Arc from her mother’s perspective. It’s the first Anderson play Moxie has ever produced. As a mom herself, Thorn said she was touched by Anderson’s description of the play in an interview where she said: “When I was a gay girl growing up, I loved Joan of Arc. ... But when I became a mother, I suddenly understood how hard it must have been for my own mother to raise a strange and gifted daughter. ... It’s hard to be a Joan, but loving a child like Joan is a whole other thing.” April 24-May 22.

Kragen writes about theater for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Email her at pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com.