Vineyard’s Fall Forward Festival will feature new works by Kirsten Childs, Madeline Sayet, More

Five new works of alternative theater make up the Fall Forward Festival of the Off-Broadway Theater Company, currently performed on Broadway with Is it a room and Dana H. The work is a mix of virtual and in-person offerings, some fully completed and others still in progress, all created during the end of the pandemic.

Aunt Lilian, a new audio musical by Kirsten Childs (The bubbly black girl throws her chameleon skin), kicks off the festival, available until December 31. Awoye Timpo leads the cast including Amber Iman (Mix along …), Ashley D. Kelley (The game that goes wrong), NaTasha Yvette Williams (Chicken and Biscuits), Darlesia Cearcy (Once on this island), Jasmin Walker (Avenue Q), Brandon Gill (A Christmas Carol) and Kevin Massey (Bad). In the short musical, Childs tells a story of his own childhood in a battle of wills between two Californian siblings and their visiting Southern aunt.

Maybe Dorothy was right, a short film by Ngozi Anyanwu produced in collaboration with Alfonso Johnson, is a love letter to New York and its cinemas. It is available to stream from October 7 to December 31.

Jared Mezzocchi’s multimedia performance On the beauty of loss is an exploration of the impact of social technology on the way humans collect memories and grieve. The original composition of the play is by Lee Kinney. The digital performance will be broadcast live from November 11-21.

The festival will conclude with two in-person readings of new works at the Vineyard Theater: 56 flowers by Polly Pen, a musical about a veterinary receptionist’s fascination with early 20th-century songwriter Carrie Jacobs-Bond (October 24-25) and Fish by Madeline Sayet, a complete play about two Jewish Mohegan siblings exploring the secrets of their ancestors, in December.

For more information visit VineyardTheater.org.