Casting Announced For 21st Annual Colorado New Play Festival

The Colorado New Play Festival (CNPF) (Artistic Director Andrew Leynse) (formerly the Perry-Mansfield New Works Festival) is proud to announce full casting for all five play readings for the 2018 season. The 21st Annual Festival, to be held on June 10-16, 2018 in Steamboat Springs, CO, will develop five new works in partnership with The Actors Theatre of Louisville, Alley Theatre, Curious Theatre Company, Primary Stages, and Victory Gardens Theater.

Now in its 21st season, each summer the Colorado New Play Festival brings together five playwrights who work with a major theatrical institution to create a new play, which is presented with professional actors in a reading at the end of the week. The readings will take place June 15-16 at the Chief Theater (813 Lincoln Ave, Steamboat Springs, CO 80487).

THE THIN PLACE

By Lucas Hnath

Presented by Actors Theatre of Louisville (Louisville, KY)

Directed by Les Waters

Featuring Robin Bartlett*, Emily Cass McDonald*, Sue Jean Kim*, and Keith Reddin*

It's a place where the line between this world and some other world is very thin. It's like if you were to imagine an octopus pressed up against glass, except there's no glass... and no octopus.

TENDER MERCIES

By Daisy Foote

Presented by The Alley Theatre (Houston, TX)

Directed by Michael Wilson

Featuring Devon Abner*, Mary Bacon*, donnie l. betts*, Joe Callahan, Katie Drinkard*, Michael Hayden*, Drew Hirschboeck Virginia Kull*, Matthew Laws, Michael Whitebread, Luke Wichelhaus and Erin Willis*

Daisy Foote adapts Horton Foote's Oscar-winning screenplay Tender Mercies for the stage. Mac Sledge was the King of Country married to the Queen, Dixie Scott, but the bottle and jealousy tore their family apart. Rosa Lee Wadsworth lost her young husband in Vietnam and now she and her boy Sonny live quietly alone. By the time Mac turns up drunk at Rosa Lee's three-cabin Texas roadside motel, he is a divorced has-been who hasn't seen his daughter in years. Rosa Lee's and Mac's dare for a second chance together tests their faith and love in this powerful story of human endurance and forgiveness.

SANCTIONS

By Bruce Graham

Presented by Curious Theatre Company (Denver, CO)

Directed by Chip Walton

Featuring Dee Covington, Sheryl McCallum*, Darrick Mosley*, and Alaina Beth Reel

In the world of Division 1 football, there is no room for scandal and no tolerance for losing. As the Cats come off sanctions, the racially-divided staff battle out how far they are willing to bend the rules to ensure a win. It's academics vs. football. It's money vs. integrity. It's a collision of cover-ups in this aggressive new play diving into a world where players are pawns and the world stands still every Saturday afternoon.

LITTLE WOMEN

By Kate Hamill

Presented by Primary Stages (New York, NY)

Based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott

Directed by Kate Hamill

Featuring Roberta Colindrez*, Ceci Fernandez*, Kate Hamill, Nikki Massoud*, Luis Moreno*, Joe Tapper*, and Gabra Zackman*

A fresh new take on Louisa May Alcott's classic novel of love and duty. Jo March doesn't want to be like other girls; in fact, she's not even sure that she wants to be a girl. Jo is ambitious, rough around the edges, headstrong, and yearns for a future she can't yet articulate. As the nation is torn apart by civil war, Jo and her sisters struggle with what it means to grow up. Gender roles, political beliefs, poverty, and even love itself threaten to break family ties, as the March sisters try to reconcile their identities with society's demands. How do you stay true to yourself when the world wants you to become a perfect little woman?

MIRIAM FOR PRESIDENT

By Madhuri Shekar

Presented by Victory Gardens Theater (Chicago, IL)

Directed by Chay Yew

Featuring Simi Bal, McKenzie Chinn*, Krystal Ortiz, and Janet Ulrich Brooks*

Miriam hates to be known as "that girl who got kidnapped then escaped that sex trafficking ring." She wants to be known as Miriam, your top candidate for student council president at Roosevelt High School. But her parents, counselor, and best friend keep insisting that she's not ready. But what do they know? What do they really know about what happened to Miriam? From Madhuri Shekar, the author of Queen, comes a powerful play about survival, rebirth, and the silent crime of human trafficking in Chicago.

*Appears courtesy of the Actors Equity Association.

Reading Schedule

Friday, June 15th @ 4:00pm

Sanctions by Bruce Graham

Friday, June 15th @ 8:00pm

Little Women by Kate Hamill

Saturday, June 16th @ 11:00am

The Thin Place by Lucas Hnath

Saturday, June 16th@ 3:00pm

Miriam for President by Madhuri Shekar

Saturday, June 16th @ 7:00pm

Tender Mercies by Daisy Foote

Single tickets for each reading are $15 in advance. Festival Passes start at $70 for all 5 readings. Tickets are available at cnpfsteamboat.org/schedule-tickets. For other information, please call 970-879-4335. For lodging and area information please contact the CNPF office for discounted hotel rooms at the official partner hotel or visit the Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort online.

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