Join Us at Our New Play Festival

Get ready because our annual PlayFest presented by Harriett’s Charitable Trust (PlayFest) is coming at you this fall! We have expanded the festival to two weekends this year so that a greater number of patrons can see more new plays. It’s a chance for actors, writers, directors, and audiences to commune over stories at the heart of our collective conscious.

The inception of a new play is an exciting and challenging time for a playwright. To help polish their work they need to submit to festivals, development opportunities, retreats, and playwriting awards. It is a crucial step in the process for a writer to hear their work read aloud by capable actors, guided by the hand of a director, and assisted by a dramaturge. PlayFest offers them that opportunity.

Playwrights spend a large amount of time looking for opportunities to have their work performed. Rarely is a play given a chance at production without having development to back it up. An untested play needs time, space, and creative minds to expand and challenge it.

I love being in the rehearsal room with a playwright. When we produce Shakespeare, we have no choice but to turn to books about the man and his works. We have to make imaginative yet educated choices and reference scholarly works. When we produce new plays, we get to converse with the writer directly and ask them about their intentions. The original resource is there to provide insight and to go in depth on a particular moment. There is nothing like having a writer to dream and scheme the play with!

I am excited about this year’s selections for many reasons, but mainly because each of the plays addresses current topics like scientific invention, family dynamics, caregiving, racism, police brutality, identity and community, liberalism and conservatism, feminism, and female inventiveness. From Miranda Rose Hall’s ethereal look at redemption in the back woods of Alaska to Rachel Lynett’s scathing portrayal of life for a black academic in a predominantly white, liberal arts campus—there is a wide range of perspectives offered up this year.

I hope you will join us this October!

Sincerely,
Kristin Clippard, Producer in Residence at Orlando Shakes