MOONSHINER, a new play by Columbia MFA alum Lillian Mottern set during the brutal 2019 Southern California wildfires, will have its first UK reading on August 29, 2025 at London’s BOLD Theatre, 29.08.25 at 15:00 21 St. George’s Road London, SE1 6ES. The reading will be directed by New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Artistic Fellowship and Drama League Special Project Residency Recipient, Danica Selem, also a Columbia MFA graduate.
The cast includes Eva Morgan, Brydie Service, Hannah Currie, Jad Sayegh, and Sophia Golan.
As the annual wildfires rage along the border of Los Angeles, three young women contemplate their futures and wage emotional battles from the rooftop of a stucco apartment building.
Funny, dark, and tragic like a black-and-white Western, Moonshiner is tonally tied to the work of writers like Sam Shepard and Joan Didion – dipping into noir, and playing with American tropes, and the unrealness of growing up in a city like Los Angeles. As it progresses from realism into something more dreamlike, the play interrogates the fabrications of youth, and explores the mythology of California through the eyes of three women of the internet-generation who find honesty the most frightening task of all.
The play will have its official New York debut in 2026, produced by Adult Film.