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NEW WORK
INITIATIVE
The
New plays are important. Since 2014 we have committed to programming new works alongside our Shakespeare and musical productions.
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Help decide which plays chosen for our 2021 summer season, by coming to our online Scratch Night and casting your vote.
In partnership with Pink House Productions.
THURS, MARCH 4TH
7:30PM
ZOOM
Pinkhouse Productions is adapting the “Scratch Night” platform (popular in the UK) to offer playwrights a new chance to share their work. This is an international opportunity for emerging, unrepresented writers to have their work performed in the Scranton Shakespeare Festival's (Scranton Shakes) 2021 socially distanced summer season.
Submissions
In Autumn 2020, Scranton Shakes and Pinkhouse Productions held international open submissions, for new scripts featuring the theme of Ghosts. After receiving over 300 brand new scripts from writers based across the US, UK, Europe and Canada; our literary team narrowed the playwrights and their submissions down to just four finalists.
The Night
The final four, will stage a ten-minute extract of their scripts for a remote viewing audience and a panel of industry professionals in March 2021. The winning script will be programmed at the Scranton Shakespeare Festival, taking place during the Summer of 2021 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Hosted by Saturday Night Live cast member Heidi Gardner and featuring a glittering panel of guest judges, this will be a unique opportunity to sample never-before-seen work by some of the most exciting emerging playwrights of the moment.
THE SHORTLISTED PLAYS
SUNDAY NIGHT AT JANE'S
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Written by
Emily Powers
Directed by
Sonny Nightingale
What would happen if you invited all of your exes over for a dinner party and then never showed up? Sunday Night at Jane’s is a comedy that follows five guests and one bisexual ex and the chaos that ensues. Each guest has their own motives for coming to dinner. In flashbacks, we see each relationship play out. All of these memories collide to create an idea of Jane. It’s a self portrait of a woman who doesn’t matter and possibly doesn’t exist but more on that later.
Cast
Ben Wilfred Moeschter
Samantha Jennifer Dufton
Carey Gil Hamel
Craig Brendan Rush
Heather Jasmine Cabanilla
STRANGE, AMERICA
Written by
Edward Precht
Directed by
Dunya J. Karam
In Strange, America , a young couple finds themselves stranded in a mysterious town in the Pacific Northwest. Their uneasy relationship is about to become the least of their worries. This magical, dark, funny new work explores the tall tales we tell others, the lies we tell ourselves, and the monsters that lurk behind us all.
Cast
Rosemary Harrison Becca Ballenge
Frau Trude Boeman Rew Starr
Anders Boeman Curtis Jackson
Abraham Eldritch Kevin Gay
CONVERSION RATE
Written by
Sergei Burbank
Directed by
NJ Agwuna
An aspiring journalist thinks he’s found the motherlode: a retired and possibly crooked New York City cop whose tainted caseload might have put untold numbers of innocent men behind bars. But is the target as frail as he seems? Is his own journalistic record as spotless as he claims? And are the police -- the spear’s tip of society’s criminal justice system -- solely responsible for the consequences of the overwhelming job with which they’ve been tasked? Conversion Rate examines questions of ethics, humanity, and collective responsibility for the three-strikes, prison-industrial complex that now encumbers American society.
Cast
Phil Conor McGuigan
Frank Corey Allen
SHEOL
Written by
Matthew Martinez
Directed by
Kimille Howard
A crew of five are tasked with watching a mysterious pit in the middle of a desert. Chaos ensues when the crew that is supposed to replace them never shows up, leaving them with a deadly choice between staying and risking their sanity, or leaving and risking their lives.
Cast
Emery Daniel Holme
O'Brien Alec Anderson-Currasco
Reese Ania Upstill