New Play Festival
23rd Annual New Play Festival
23rd Annual New Play Festival Finalists
The Snallygaster
Playwright:
Barry Wallace
Bio: Barry Wallace has worked in Knoxville community and professional theatre for over 30 years. His directing credits are Dancing at Lughnasa, Suite Surrender, Wait Until Dark, Hay Fever, Night Must Fall and It’s a Wonderful Life. He was recently was seen in the casts of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and Measure for Measure with Tennessee Stage Company, Something Rotten with Tennessee Valley Players and Murder on the Orient Express with Theatre Knoxville, and has music directed The Fantasticks, The Music Man, Little Shop of Horrors, Chicago, Little Women: The Musical, Peter Pan, Grease and Into the Woods and many more. His original short play, Snallygaster, is part of Chicago’s New American Folk Theatre’s Jubilee dramatic anthology about life in Appalachia, and another short play, Black Balloons, won Best Screenplay at the 2022 10-Show Film Festival in Provo, UT.
Synopsis: A young writer goes in search of stories about his Appalachian heritage, and in the process discovers an enigmatic relative who exposes a horrifying truth about his family’s past. Mountain folklore meets contemporary suspense as Tim must rediscover his forgotten childhood and confront the power of storytelling.
Love Language of Origin
Playwright:
Michael P. Adams
Bio: Michael P. Adams is an award-winning queer writer from the greater Los Angeles area. His plays have been produced in New York (Atlantic Theater Company), Los Angeles, Albuquerque (Fusion Theatre Company), Memphis, Spokane, and Orlando, among others. Since 2019, Michael has been a member of Playground-LA, where his short play “Love Language of Origin” was selected as the best of the 2023-24 season and received a commission to be developed into a full-length play. Michael’s play “MLES2GO” recently received a developmental workshop at the Renaissance Theatre in Ohio as part of their Emerging Artists Festival. Additionally, Michael’s short fiction has appeared in over a dozen literary journals, including Chicago Literati, Nomadic Journal, and New Plains Review, which selected his short story “Elmo in the Passenger Seat” for the Editor’s Prize for Fiction. He is a graduate of the MFA program at San Jose State University.
Synopsis: What begins as a quirky rivalry at an adult spelling bee turns into an unexpected romance between two word nerds navigating love, ego, and ambition under the spotlight. As their viral fame grows, so do the cracks in their relationship—testing how language, pride, and vulnerability can both connect and divide us. Equal parts witty and heartfelt, Love Language of Origin is a sharply observed comedy about competition, connection, and the words we use to define love.
Chrysalis
Playwright:
Gwyneth Strope
Bio: Gwyneth Strope is a playwright, actor, and visual artist based in Roanoke, VA. She holds an M.F.A. in playwriting from Hollins University and is the producing manager for the Hollins Theatre Institute. Gwyneth earned a B.A. in theatre from James Madison University with concentrations in performance and teaching artistry. As a theatre-maker, she writes and performs new works that envision, embody, and embolden the stories of women. Her most recently produced plays are In Bloom (Tesseract Theatre & Hollins University) and Grace and the Ghost (Pipe Dreams Studio Theatre & RGC Theatre). Last year, Gwyneth was a finalist for the TYA ThinkTank Playfest in Tampa for her play, In Bloom. In 2023, Chrysalis won the KCACTF Region IV “David L. Shelton Award” for excellence in playwriting and earned the “Citizen Artist Award” at the national level. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild.
Synopsis: Faced with an unwanted pregnancy, Mirage enters an illusive mind space to confront her own memories of childhood head-on. Along the way, she comes face to face with the past versions of herself she had fragmented years before. As Mirage revisits and reimagines her trauma, Chrysalis illuminates the process of healing from the past and breaking the cycle of abuse to start anew.
Playwright in Residence: College Drop-Off
Playwright:
Bonnie Metzgar
Bio: BONNIE METZGAR is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, director and producer who specializes in creating socially-provocative theater works. She served as staff writer for GENIUS: ARETHA, a limited TV series on Hulu with showrunner and longtime collaborator Suzan-Lori Parks. Metzgar has won the national Edgerton New Play Award for her play YOU LOST ME which had its world premiere at the Denver Center Theatre in 2020. Metzgar was a member of the Goodman Theater’s resident Playwrights Unit and was awarded the Carl Djerassi Fellowship in Playwriting at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her plays have been finalists for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Festival, and selected for the Great Plains Theater Conference in Omaha. She was commissioned by the NEA, the Goodman Theater, Sideshow Theatre and was formerly Artistic Director of About Face Theatre, one of the largest theaters in the US dedicated to producing LGBTQ artists and advancing the cultural dialogue on sexuality and gender identity. For ten years, Metzgar was the Associate Producer at the Public Theater in NYC where she founded the world renowned performance club Joe’s Pub. She is currently on faculty at University of Illinois Chicago.
Synopsis: A poignant, time-jumping dramedy about mothers, memory, and making meaning in a divided America. From acclaimed playwright Bonnie Metzgar comes a funny, tender, and sharply observant new play that spans thirty years—from 1995 to 2025—tracing the parallel journeys of a mother and her son as each begins college at the same Midwestern university, three decades apart. With wit, warmth, and haunting lyricism, College Drop-Off explores what we inherit from our parents and what we pass on to our children—a story about growing up, letting go, and finding your voice in a world that’s constantly changing.
Front and Centre:
A New Work Initiative
Who Are We?
Centre Stage is a professional theatre in the heart of Downtown Greenville, SC. We have been in Greenville for 40 years and in our current location for 25 years. Our goal as an organization is to captivate, cultivate, and inspire. Our new work program is an important component of our mission as we cultivate playwrights who are striving to create new stories that will captivate and inspire audiences for years to come.
What Do We Do?
Centre Stage produces professional theatre, providing opportunities for young professional artists to work along side seasoned professionals. New work has been a crucial component to what Centre Stage does. We allow Greenville audiences to engage with new work from the southern region, playwrights to hear their work allowed, and continue to develop new work in preparation for production—both at Centre Stage and in theatres around the country.
What Is Centre Stage’s Commitment To New Work?
Centre Stage has produced their Annual New Play Festival for 20 years. Doug McCoy believed in the importance of new work and the festival was a key way Doug displayed that commitment. Today, Centre Stage is still just as committed to developing new work as the day Doug started the festival.
Can I Send Centre Stage My Play?
Yes! Please send us your play! We want your play! However, due to the rigorous production schedule that Centre Stage there are certain ways to send us your play that will be more beneficial than others. Centre Stage will continue to hold our Annual New Play Festival, when submissions open, please submit your play through submittable.
What is the New Play Festival?
The New Play Festival is an opportunity for playwrights to submit their plays for production. We open submissions in the Spring and have a panel of judges read them over the summer. Then, Semi-Finalists are chosen and from that point, the Centre Stage staff reads the plays and determines a Final 3. This final 3 is determined by the quality of text, set needs,
What Other Things Does Centre Stage Do With New Work?
We are always looking for plays for our Fringe Series, as well as other development opportunities. We also will help a playwright develop a text by coordinating and providing feedback through a private workshop. Most recently, playwright Mario Suarez received a reading of his new musical La Zafra. This is an important step in the development process and Centre Stage is committed to helping playwrights hear their work aloud as they prepare for further revisions.