The Dirty Ladiez of P&P
an original play by Laini Sharifi
Beginning in February 2025, Laini started writing this weird little play. Over the course of the following months, the script grew from a single monologue, to 22 pages, to 85 pages, to 145, and back to 85. Through the process, Laini alongside her wonderful director, collaborator and fellow artist, Cristina Neely, invited groups of friends and actors to participate in table readings. These “Friend Workshops” involved gathering at Laini’s East Village apartment, reading that night’s draft aloud, and holding an hour of feedback for the actors and any listeners to offer moments of excitement, confusion, and ideas for how The Dirty Ladiez might be able to grow and eventually explode!
Laini and Cristina held four amazing workshop readings, inviting new actors each night. Between every workshop, Laini would take notes from that night and create a new draft to be read at the next meeting. The goal was to see what was at the heart of this play: which elements of scenes and characters translated from actor to actor? how did these relationships come across from draft to draft? how freaky can we make this?
The Friend Workshops eventually culminated in Draft 5, the current draft of The Dirty Ladiez. Cristina and Laini cast a group of actors for their following stage: a Friend Reading. In the first week of June, 2025, The Dirty Ladiez of P&P celebrated its debut Friend Reading in a Bushwick Backyard. After one night of rehearsal and lots of nervous but excited conversation, Laini’s first original full length play was read amongst friends, peers and loved ones.
Delancey (Keira Botjer), Maggie (Bella Cvengros), Luellen (Sofia Goorno), Elizabeth (Grace Javins), Will (Chris Richards)
Not only is Laini extremely proud of the actors’ and Cristina’s hard work, she is proud and deeply grateful to have been able to hear her words spoken by those she loves, surrounded by those she loves.
Check out our Process…
And be sure to follow our instagram @thedirtyladiezofpandp as we continue to workshop
