New Canon Theatre Co.’s next play, a world premiere, highlights underrepresented voices and their stories.

New Canon Theatre Company is offering an invitation inside the lab. With the company’s second show of this season, the new nonprofit is moving beyond reimagining Shakespearean classics and into the second part of its mission – to stage new works that elevate underrepresented voices on the Monterey Peninsula. First up as the old canon meets the new is the world premiere of Finding Chase, written and directed by Los Angeles-based playwright C. Wright.

In the play, a main character takes his own life but leaves behind a specific request for his partner of eight years and his father to spend time together, even though they have never spoken. What transpires next explores how everyday people process grief, as told through the intersecting lens of Black and queer lives.

Since 2022, New Canon has broken away from traditionally staged Shakespeare, reimagining those stories as told in immersive and modern ways. Productions such as Henry V traded swords for make-believe assault rifles, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and was produced in a bar rather than on a stage.

Finding Chase takes yet another step into the new.

“By sitting in our theater for two hours you experience something new. You get a peek into another life,” says Noah Lucé, who plays Glen.

Staging a never-before-seen show is not without its challenges, New Canon Managing Director Justine Stock acknowledges. It’s unfamiliar, even while “people want escapism right now, people want nostalgia. And I understand that,” she says. Yet there is value to stepping outside our comfort zones and putting a magnifying glass to some of life’s hard topics, she argues. “We need to realize as a society that all stories are valid and worth sharing,” adds Artistic Director Justin Gordon.

Writer/director C. Wright hopes the play builds empathy. “There are all of these tiers of individuals that can relate to you,” Wright says, reflecting on experiences that inspired his writing. “In that way, theater can change – theater does change [individual’s behavior] – but what it all comes down to is choice. And that is what’s put on full display in this particular play.”

Finding Chase 7:30pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2pm Sundays, July 27-Aug. 5. Carmel High School Performing Arts Center, 27990 N. Doris Watson Place, Carmel. $45; $35/seniors, teachers, military; $15/students. For ages 17 and up. newcanontheatre.org