Sponsored by the Maurer Family Foundation
Upcoming Festival Dates: January 5-7, 2024
This annual festival provides playwrights the invaluable opportunity to hear their words presented aloud and invites audiences to share their feedback in post-reading discussions, which is instrumental to the development and growth of a new play.
Past 2023 Festival Schedule:
- Friday, January 6 at 3pm - The Messenger by Jenny Connell Davis
Inspired by the life of Hungarian Holocaust survivor Georgia Gabor, this play in four monologues is a meditation on how our stories can protect or expose us, and on the connections between past, present, and future.
- Friday, January 6 at 7pm - The Virgin Queen Entertains Her Fool by Michael Hollinger
Adalia, Virgin Queen of the Realm and Mother of Us All, is dying, and must name her successor before it’s too late. But she’d rather spend her final hours enjoying the distractions of her Fool. Meanwhile, her niece and nephew have both assembled armies to storm the castle, each hoping to grab the crown as it falls. Clearly, the clock is ticking -- what’s a woman to do?
- Saturday, January 7 at 1pm - Playwrights Forum
- Saturday, January 7 at 3pm - The Islanders by Carey Crim
Anna lives a small and quiet life on Beaver Island, Michigan. She has few friends and likes it that way. Her carefully controlled world is turned upside-down by the arrival of a charming but secretive new neighbor, Dutch. For different reasons, Dutch and Anna have each been thrown away by mainstream society. Can their connection survive the revelations that must inevitably come with true intimacy?
- Saturday, January 7 at 7pm - Dangerous Instruments by Gina Montet
Laura, a young single mother, would do anything for her gifted son, Daniel. Scholarships to elite private schools are the golden ticket for her little genius, but when Daniel's brilliant mind becomes violent, she finds herself battling a broken system. Laura must confront a mother's darkest fears as she desperately races to help her son before he becomes the next horrifying headline.
- Sunday, January 8 at 3pm - Crossing Ebenezer Creek by Bill Cain
Set in 1865 on the eve of President Lincoln’s assassination and in 1894 during the Pullman Strike in Chicago, the play explores the ideas of legacy, accountability, and how American history was written – and continues to repeat itself – through man’s obsession with money, power, and who controls the narrative.
- Sunday, January 8 immediately following the talkback - Champagne Toast
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Diane and Mark Perlberg - Executive Producers
Marsha and Stephen Rabb - Producers
Penny Bank/Sandra and Bernie Meyer - Associate Producers
