Directed by Khanisha Foster
Produced by Playwright’s Arena
Golden Tongues: Fling
Who are we, truly, in the dark? Four young beauty-pageant contestants trapped during a blackout are forced to reckon with their own ambitions, bare their secrets, and come together.
While competing in a beauty pageant in Toledo, Ohio, Johnna, Reyna, Iris, and Manny find themselves trapped in their hotel as the power grid collapses in the middle of a sweltering heat wave. Obligated to pass the time while waiting to be released, the girls make the best of it. Amid jokes, lively banter, and a good deal of tension, they grapple with their standing in an industry that both exploits and perpetuates stereotypes, and with their own motivations for participating in it, even those that are better left unsaid. In this dark comedy, O’Neal draws inspiration from the characters deprived of their freedom in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Los empeños de una casa. While exploring how the young women forge connections and support one another in confinement, Fling reflects on the paradox of women’s complicity in the systems that perpetuate their own oppression.
Golden Tongues is a collaboration between Diversifying the Classics and Playwrights’ Arena. Since 2013, the Golden Tongues initiative has commissioned and staged new adaptations in English of Hispanic classical plays by Los Angeles playwrights.
Fling will be a staged reading in English.
Zharia O’Neal (she/her) is a playwright and poet hailing from the British Virgin Islands. She writes b/Black comedies and is obsessed with what family means to all of us. O’Neal was the 2022 Playwright-in-Residence at Sound Theatre, USC International Artists’ Fellow, and HUMANITAS PLAY LA awardee.
Her work has been commissioned by UCLA’s Diversifying the Classics and Sound Theatre and includes: ROOST (National Playwrights Conference Semifinalist), SEVEN STAGE CIRCLE (Ashland New Plays Finalist), poetry collection rottincrop, and more. Residencies: Sound Theatre, Headlands Center for the Arts, SPACE at Ryder Farm (selected for Fall ‘24).
Cast
Sola Bamis
Briana James
Sophia Teyolia
Emma Galbraith
Ben Stephens