"Playworks' SummerStage program provided BRUSH THE SUMMER BY with the perfect blend of resources to develop a new script: top of the line collaborators, a generous and efficiently employed rehearsal period, a staged reading delivering near performance-level characterizations, and a theatrical savvy audience to offer constructive feedback. Amazing enough, all of this was accomplished in a single long weekend! At a time when funding is scarce and producers are too box-office focused to take the time to test new material, Umberger's company continues to believe in creating good theatre the old fashioned way: investing in new plays. I left Charlotte with some wonderful memories and far better script - a happy beneficiary of the Playworks' nurturing and ultimately very practical philosophy."
"It's all about the audience. I'm really watching to see what stirs the audience. Whenever a work is dramatized, the actors teach you, the directors teach you, and the audiences teach you. My job is to shut up and listen"
"A rare opportunity to refine a script."
"Impeccably produced"
Submissions
We
are always interested in new scripts and new ideas for
projects. Email us with a short description of the
project, some biographical information about yourself, and any
press material you would like to include. We will
respond to you by email within four weeks.
Send
your submissions to:
info@playworksonline.org
New Script Development
Staged readings and workshop productions are ways of giving life to new scripts, letting writers see and hear their work, and involving audiences in the creative process. Actors with scripts in hands on a spare set convey the essence of new scripts.
Below are a few examples of staged readings produced by Playworks:
"STARSTRUCK"
by Judy Simpson Cook
"BRUSH THE SUMMER BY"
by Hal Corley
"CROSSFIRE"
by John Batanides
Angels and demons struggle for influence over mankind in a modern day telling of the birth of the son of God. Crossfire is a musical that places the story in the context of media-driven contemporary life.
Thinking in Pictures
A festival of new plays and film scripts in staged reading Co-produced by The Light Factory
"ANITA BRYANT DIED FOR YOUR SINS"
by Brian Christopher Williams
Watergate, women's rights, civil rights, gay rights, Vietnam, gas rationing, elections, family values. Sound familiar? The era may have changed but the challenges haven't. Set against the turbulent panorama of the 70s and 80s, this is the story of the colorful and eccentric Poore family, whose teenage son Horace is growing up, coming out, and learning what it means to be an American during a dynamic time in the country's history. Evoking the times with the clever use of pop culture (including Anita Bryant herself), Williams' inventive work displays, as one critic said, "a vibrant new voice in the theatre." The script receives continued development on a revised version, following its world premiere and 8 week run last year at Florida Studio Theatre. (Made possible in part by a grant from The Wesley Mancini Foundation.)
"GOSPEL HILL"
by Jeff Stacy
The small Southern town of Julia is haunted. Haunted by two men: one white, one black, the heads of two families pitted in hatred against each other by a civil rights struggle that decimated the town when it was poised to become something brilliant. Jack Herrod the racist former sheriff and John Malcolm a former civil rights activist haunt the perimeters of this tawdry little town. Now as the South prepares to remember Peter Malcolm, John's brother who was murdered fighting for his beliefs, Julia is set to explode economically once more before the nation. Stacy's taut, topical script is a 2005 recipient of a N.C. Arts Council Screenwriting Fellowship, and is currently being developed for feature production by actor/director Giancarlo Esposito ("The Usual Suspects," "Ali," "Homicide").
"DAIRY QUEEN DAYS"
by Robert Inman
The year is 1979, and the stable moorings of 16 year old Trout Moseley's life have been torn loose. His mother is in an Atlanta psychiatric for reasons he cannot fathom, while his father, a 300 pound Methodist minister who rides a motorcycle, has begun delivering scandalous sermons comparing Jesus to Elvis and the Holy Ghost to his college football coach. Moving back to the small Southern town that bears his family name, Trout is caught between powerful ancestral traditions and the need to create an identity of his own. Novelist and screenwriter Inman brings to the festival a brand new dramatization of his popular novel of the same name.
