SOUTHIES Set for the Samuel French OOB Festival Next Month

Southies by Philadelphia author and playwright Jeffrey James Keyes has been selected to be a finalist in The 49th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival (OOB), presented by Concord Theatricals, in New York City this summer. Southies will be directed by Andrew Coopman (New York Freelance Director-Choreographer and Artistic Associate at the Drama League) and presented on August 13 at The Vineyard's Dimson Theatre (108 East 15th Street, NYC).

The play will feature actors Lesley Miller, Jean-Paul Morales, and Joshua Ster. Southies, chosen from 850 submissions, is one of the Top 30 plays to be presented during the week-long event. At the end of the Festival, Concord Theatricals staff will select the Final 6 titles for publication and licensing.

Keyes notes, "Southies is a fun play about a gay couple that moves to a new brownstone in the South End of Boston that's completely haunted. At the end of a late-night dinner party, Austin and Sean reminisce about eerie encounters in their formerly haunted home... or so they thought. I wrote Southies at a coffee shop near Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. The brownstones in the neighborhood reminded me of a story a family member told me about a haunting they experienced in Boston's South End. Inspired by this memory, I ordered an iced coffee like a proper homosexual, and sat down to write this play."

"This is my third time participating in the Samuel French OOB Festival, and it's such an honor to be back. I've had quite a bit of success with additional opportunities extending from my previous OOB performances. Following the 2016 production, my play Uniforms was adapted into a screenplay and played at over thirty film festivals worldwide. After the 2013 OOB production, Imaginary Friends was presented in Chicago, Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, and is set for an upcoming audio drama series. I'm thrilled to collaborate with my buddy Andrew Coopman on this project and am so grateful for the Concord Theatricals team."

The OOB Festival is one of Concord Theatricals' primary initiatives to work with the next wave of emerging playwrights. This summer, the Top 30 plays will be narrowed down to 10-12 finalists, selected by a panel of esteemed playwrights and theatre leaders. From the finalists, six will be selected by Concord Theatricals to be licensed for future productions and published in the 49th edition of the Off Off Broadway Festival Plays series, an anthology of short plays.

The 49th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival, presented by Concord Theatricals, will run August 13-17, 2024 at The Vineyard's Dimson Theatre (108 East 15th Street, NYC). For tickets and more information, visit oobfestival.com.

The Top 30 plays of the 2024 OOB Festival are:

• A Neo-Vagina Monologue by Aster Aguilar

• Pilloried by Jillian Blevins

• A Mercy At Midnight Castle by Phillip Gregory Burke

• The Issue by Jennifer Crittenden

• stuffed by Claire Dettloff

• Kaylee and Adelyn by Elizabeth Shannon Ellis

• Data Queen by Adam Ashraf Elsayigh

• Yom Kippur Abortion by Shira Gorelick

• Tourist Trap by Elijah Guo

• Sanctuary by Alyssa Haddad-Chin

• Happy Havens Church of Higher Enlightenment by Paris Herbert-Taylor

• Beethoven's Third by Howard Ho

• Figment of Manifestation by Christine Hoang

• Runaway Girl by Mo Holmes

• Blood and Coal Dust by Arthur M. Jolly

• Vape Lord by Manning Jordan

• fire / fight by Drayla Kasheen

• Southies by Jeffrey James Keyes

• Are You My Last Stop by T.J. L

• Modelland by Aidan La Poche

• Louisiana Shoal by Mildred Inez Lewis

• Bad Horses by Martin Murray

• Do You Party? by Megan Rivkin

• Shoptalk by TyLie Shider

• sundays in the park with clay & cher by SMJ

• A Definitive Ranking of My Closest Friends by Jay Stalder

• Brave People by Allan Staples

• mudder by Rachel Tookey

• MOLTING by Michael Towers

• Hutch by Charles White

Concord Theatricals is the world's most significant theatrical company, comprising the catalogs of R&H Theatricals, Samuel French, Tams-Witmark and The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection, plus dozens of new signings each year. Our unparalleled roster includes the work of Irving Berlin, Agatha Christie, George & Ira Gershwin, Marvin Hamlisch, Lorraine Hansberry, Kander & Ebb, Kitt & Yorkey, Ken Ludwig, Marlow & Moss, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Anaïs Mitchell, Dominique Morisseau, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Thornton Wilder and August Wilson. We are the only firm providing truly comprehensive services to the creators and producers of plays and musicals, including theatrical licensing, music publishing, script publishing, cast recording and first-class producing. www.concordtheatricals.com

Jeffrey James Keyes, co-author of the New York Times Best Seller Killer Chef with James Patterson, holds an MFA from Columbia University's playwriting program. His theater highlights encompass productions such as Kiki (Fresh Fruit Festival), The End of Days (SoHo Playhouse/New York International Fringe Festival), The Biltmore Academy (Chicago's Prologue Theatre Company) and Imaginary Friends and Uniforms (OOB Festival). He's produced the web series Out in GayCities with

Lexus, Revealing (Sundance) and True Life (MTV). Keyes' short films 181 and Uniform have featured in over thirty festivals. He was awarded the inaugural PEN America L'Engle/Rahman Prize for Mentorship in 2020 and his 24-Hour Plays monologue Safe Word was nominated for Best Digital Entertainment in The Queerties. Recently, he participated in PlayPenn's inaugural Playwrights Cohort and Pipeline Theatre Company's PlayLab.

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