Ashland New Plays Festival to Take Place in October

Ashland New Plays Festival will present new works by playwrights Shanna Allman, Minita Gandhi, Keiko Green, and Novid Parsi at its annual Fall Festival. The festival features staged readings of four winners of the annual playwriting competition, as well as talk-backs, and playwriting workshops. The winning plays were chosen from 350 submissions, read and evaluated by a group of dedicated volunteers.

"ANPF's readers did a wonderful job this year, narrowing 350 submissions down to 13 finalists," shares ANPF's Artistic DIrector Jackie Apodaca. "Every one of those finalists was worthy of presentation, and I had the pleasure and challenge of choosing just four winning plays amongst them. The winners stood out for their humor and compassion, each one probing fundamental questions of love, freedom, and loss. Join us at our Fall Festival and get to know some of the best new voices in American Theatre. We've got family dramas, satire, a love story set in the time of Artificial Intelligence, and a play about life and death - featuring a flying Greta Thunberg."

The winning plays will be presented October 16 - 20, at SOU's Main Stage Theater at 491 S. Mountain Ave, Ashland Oregon. Each play will have both a matinee and evening performance. Standard tickets are $25; for those who need access at a lower pricing please email info@ashlandnewplays.org for a coupon code. ANPF's mission is to support playwrights in the development of new works and to engage the community as active participants in the creative process. ANPF greatly looks forward to welcoming the winning playwrights to Ashland this fall, for a week of readings, development, and collaboration.

Shanna Allman

(she/they) is a Texas-bred, Seattle-based playwright, performer, teaching artist, and professional therapeutic healthcare clown. She is the founder of Act V Scholars, which explores Shakespeare with residents in retirement communities and assisted living facilities, and is in the process of completing The William Cycle, a three play series written in verse. Her winning play Sync deals with the complicated relationships of a recently divorced woman who turns to artificial intelligence for companionship.

Minita Gandhi

is a Los Angeles-based multi-hyphenate who was born in Mumbai, India. They are thrilled to return to ANPF after directing and acting in the 2023 Fall Festival. A featured playwright at the NNPN National Showcase in 2024, Gandhi is a critically acclaimed playwright known for their solo-show Muthaland, a 2022 NYSAF Pfaelzer Award finalist. Minita's winning play Nerve follows a recently widowed woman and her daughter as their family learns to navigate grief and legacy.

Keiko Green

is a playwright, screenwriter, and performer based out of Los Angeles and Seattle. Her produced plays include: Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play; The Bed Trick; Hells Canyon; Sharon; Hometown Boy; and Nadeshiko. She is a recipient of the Gregory Award and San Diego Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Play. Keiko's winning play You are Cordially Invited to the End of the World is a humorous and witty celebration of life, the loss of a loved one and the death of the planet.

Novid Parsi

is delighted to return to the Ashland New Plays Festival, which selected his play Remains and Returns as a winner in 2022. His plays have been produced or developed by a wide variety of theaters, festivals, and companies. He has been named a winner of the Crossroads Project's Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative, was a Jeff Award nominee for best new work, and was a two-time finalist for both the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the Woodward/Newman Award. His play The Life You Gave Me is a darkly comedic commentary about family, culture, and theatre in 2024.

Tickets for each performance are available on the ANPF website at ashlandnewplays.org/fall-festival.

Submissions for ANPF's 2025 Fall Festival playwriting competition will open on September 1, 2024!

Interested in becoming a reader and helping choose the winning plays for ANPF's 2025 Festival? Learn more about what we do and sign up here: https://ashlandnewplays.org/work-with-us/

To post a comment, you must register and login.