In Ojai, a staging area for new ideas

American politics, spirituality and morality are viewed through a theatrical prism at the eighth annual Ojai Playwrights Conference, an intensive, in-residence play development retreat for playwrights, actors, dramaturges and directors.

Helmed by artistic director Robert Egan, the conference culminates this week at rustic Happy Valley School’s Zalk Theatre, with public play readings and symposia presented by noted theater artists from Los Angeles and the East Coast.

Through epic drama, slice-of-life observations, humor, tragedy and hip-hop poetry, the diverse crop of plays explores the relationship between the individual and social reality with the freedom that comes through “pure, unadulterated play development,” as opposed to the constraints of biases or conflicting vision of a producing institution, Egan says.

The works in progress, read by professional actors, are by established and emerging playwrights: Bill Cain (“Stand-Up Tragedy”), Luis Alfaro (“Electricidad”), Keith Bunin (“The Credeaux Canvas”), Julia Cho (“BFE”), Rogelio Martinez (“I Regret She’s Made of Sugar”), hip-hop poets Steven Connell and Sekou Tha Misfit, and playwright-in-residence Stephen Adly Guirgis (“The Last Days of Judas Iscariot”).

The kickoff events are two symposia, each at 7:30 p.m.: Tuesday’s “Hip Hop, Poetry, Spoken Word, Slammin’ and Hammin’: New Forms in the Theatre”; and Thursday’s “Values vs. Spirit in the American Theatre,” with a panel of playwrights and Father Greg Boyle, founder of the Homeboy Industries gang intervention program.

A free event is on tap for Saturday afternoon: Youth Writers/Performance Lab with teen artists, directed by Alfaro and Kim Maxwell-Brown.

Ojai “is a space for big-idea work,” Alfaro says. “It’s important that there’s a place that allows playwrights to talk about the world.”

-- Lynne Heffley