{"id":19330,"date":"2025-10-24T18:51:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T18:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/19330\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T18:51:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T18:51:11","slug":"orlando-shakes-to-host-playfest-2025-wdbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/19330\/","title":{"rendered":"Orlando Shakes to Host PlayFest 2025 \u2013 WDBO"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 If you ask Roberta Emerson, there\u2019s no better place for a burgeoning playwright to showcase their work than Orlando Shakes PlayFest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u25b6 LISTEN TO ORLANDO\u2019S MORNING NEWS EXPRESS PODCAST ON WDBO<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cShakespeare himself was a new playwright,\u201d said the acting Director of New Play Development. \u201cI like to remind people of that. His plays didn\u2019t come out of nowhere. So at Orlando Shakes, we are definitely committed to new work.\u201d<\/p>\n

PlayFest, Orlando Shakes<\/a>\u2019s annual playwriting festival, is an integral facet of this commitment. Over the course of the two-week event set to take place from October 24 through November 2, writers, theater professionals, and audiences come together to \u201cconnect and share ideas that promote thought-provoking stories.\u201d <\/p>\n

Five plays, painstakingly selected through what Emerson calls an \u201carduous process,\u201d will be performed, after which audience members provide immediate feedback to aid the project\u2019s development.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is in addition to the 20 hours we spend with the playwright developing their play,\u201d said Emerson. \u201cWe bring playwrights from all over the world, and they get a unique opportunity to really workshop the play with professional actors and professional stage managers, and we give them the space to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a method that\u2019s led to widespread success of past productions, with PlayFest alum seeing their plays performed on stages all across the country, including Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Dallas, and even New York City.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe make sure other theaters are aware of their development process and aware of the plays,\u201d Emerson said, \u201cand we do what we can to get [the productions] off their feet.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Emerson, the most important part of that development process is the audience participation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe audience is almost the most important character to a show,\u201d she said. \u201cPlaywrights write and actors act, but it\u2019s the audience that tells them if the story\u2019s working, if it\u2019s connecting, if [the writer\u2019s] voice is getting across. If they\u2019re writing a comedy, is it funny? If they\u2019re writing a drama, are people resonating with it? Having that immediate feedback after the reading is invaluable.\u201d<\/p>\n

But this experience doesn\u2019t just benefit the playwrights and actors. This unique offering is, in Emerson\u2019s eyes, a chance to \u201ctruly understand\u201d how much work goes into the development of a theatrical piece.<\/p>\n

\u201cAudience members get to have that journey of seeing a play in its early stages, as compared to when they get to see it onstage and it\u2019s a full production,\u201d Emerson said. \u201c[They get to see] how much it has changed and what are all the differences, and what that playwright\u2019s journey was to get that play on the stage.\u201d <\/p>\n

The productions selected for this year\u2019s festival were five of nearly 200 to 250 submissions, handpicked after a process that saw several readings and board member discussions.<\/p>\n

Week 1 will feature readings of Phanesia Pharell\u2019s Dead Girls Quincea\u00f1era<\/a>, Stephen Brown\u2019s Dunk City<\/a>, and Marcus Scott\u2019s Tumbleweed<\/a>, while Week 2 will showcase The Sandwich Ministry<\/a> by Miranda Rose Hall, and The Mallard<\/a> by Vincent Delaney. It\u2019s a wide variety of comedies, thrillers, dramas, and melodramas that perfectly encapsulate this year\u2019s theme: \u201cthought-provoking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Thought-provoking\u2019 is always kind of what we\u2019re looking for but this year, we really leaned into that,\u201d said Emerson. \u201cWhat\u2019s going to make you think about something in a way that\u2019s different than what maybe is natural for us to think? All of these shows offer something that will hopefully make an audience member, no matter what side of the aisle they sit on regarding a particular topic, it will make them ask themselves: \u2018is that what I really believe? Is this what I really think? I think every play this year will do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The festival kicks off this Friday at 7pm with a reading of Dead Girls Quincea\u00f1era. Emerson encourages everyone, even those who might be hesitant to watch what could be seen as \u201cjust a reading,\u201d to participate in this unique experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody who comes to it who\u2019s new is like, \u2018Why would I go and sit and watch a reading?\u2019 But the ability to give feedback and be an active participant is something audiences don\u2019t normally get to do,\u201d she said. \u201c[The audience] is literally actively helping create what that play ultimately becomes. So, what could you lose from that experience? There\u2019s nothing to lose. There\u2019s everything to gain.\u201d<\/p>\n

And to Emerson, one of the main things any participant of PlayFest can gain is a \u201csense of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always an interesting time to be in theater,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd yet, it\u2019s always survived. I have to have some hope in that, especially what with everything that\u2019s going on in the world. The only thing we can do is create art because while every part of the world looks like it\u2019s trying to destroy itself, it\u2019s the art that has saved us. Art is the only thing that leaves you with hope, with a bit of joy, with something to think about. What we do is important. It\u2019s good to remember that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u00a92025 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 If you ask Roberta Emerson, there\u2019s no better place for a burgeoning playwright to showcase…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[6029,6030,147,28,139,15762,141,140,15758,15757,3696,15761,3697,15759,15760,5597],"class_list":["post-19330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-580am","tag-am580","tag-central-florida","tag-florida","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-festival","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-orlando-plays","tag-orlando-playwriting","tag-orlando-shakes","tag-orlando-shakes-playfest","tag-orlando-theater","tag-orlando-theater-shows-near-me","tag-playfest-2025","tag-wdbo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}