Lydia R. Diamond, Fabian Obispo, Chay Yew, et al. Set for Huntington’s Breaking Ground Festival

The Huntington Theatre Company has announced selections for its 2009 Breaking Ground Festival of new work, with readings to be presented July 24 and August 3-5.

The Festival will begin with The Long Season (July 24), a new musical by writer Chay Yew and composer Fabian Obispo that chronicles Filipino immigration to the United States in the 1920s and the unionization of a cannery in Alaska. Peter DuBois will direct. Next up will be Joyce Van Dyke’s Deported / a dream play (August 3), which tells the story of Elmas and Varter who save each other’s lives during the Armenian genocide. Judy Braha will direct.

Lydia R. Diamond’s Lizzie Stranton (August 4) is a bawdy reimagining of Aristophanes’ even bawdier Lysistrata, in which a fictional first lady convenes a meeting in 2016 of the most prominent women in the world with a radical scheme to end war. The final reading will be Jacqui Parker’s Jeanie Don’t Sing No Mo’ (August 5), about a once-famous blues singer, who stopped speaking the day her father died.

For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org/breakingground.