Novid Parsi’s Remains and Returns, directed by ANPF Artistic Director Jackie Apodaca, looks with humor and honesty at intergenerational care and neglect. The play follows an Iranian-American family, played by Amin El Gamal, Wiley Naman Strasser, Alan Clark, and Adrianne Cury, as they talk about nothing and everything at once, how they do not speak of their own traumatic pasts, yet how the past persists, even in silence.

“The play explores how we do and don’t speak about who we are and what we’ve lived,” says St. Louis-based playwright Parsi.

Ashland New Plays Festival will present readings of five new works by winning playwrights Clarence Coo, Lisa Langford, Victor Lesniewski, Novid Parsi, and Jonathan Spector at its flagship annual event. Bringing the plays to life will be an amazing group of actors, many familiar stars of Oregon Shakespeare Festival and other incredible actors traveling to Ashland from New York, Los Angeles, Portland and regional hotspots.

The Festival Week runs October 18–23, with evening and matinee showings at Southern Oregon University’s Main Stage Theater, 491 S. Mountain Avenue. Talkbacks will follow each performance, giving audiences the chance to connect with the playwrights about their new work. A writer's workshop on October 22 will be another way to connect with the winning playwrights.