THE SOUTH CAROLINA NEW PLAY FESTIVAL Announces A Citywide Performing Arts Festival In Greenville This August

The South Carolina New Play Festival has announced that it will take over Greenville's downtown August 12-14, 2022, with readings of new plays and musicals at the Peace Center, Greenville Theatre, Warehouse Theatre, and the South Carolina Children's Theatre, and a closing-night cabaret at Genevieve's featuring Broadway celebrities Jarrod Spector and Kelli Barrett.

All readings will be free with first-come, first-serve open seating. Reserved seating is available for Patrons and VIPs of the festival. To reserve a seat, sign up for a class, or learn more about the South Carolina New Play Festival, visit www.southcarolinanewplayfestival.org.

The festival will present readings of two new plays, one new musical, and one new children's play, along with professional training classes for actors and singers, and the closing night cabaret. Readings will feature well-known Broadway actors, as well as beloved performers from the local community, and will be helmed by established and experienced directors with a national profile. This is a destination event for theater lovers and a unique opportunity for Southeastern audiences to meet the artists and shape the future of American theater.

The South Carolina New Play Festival is helmed by Executive and Artistic Director West Hyler (Cirque du Soleil's Paramour on Broadway), the former producing artistic director of the New York Musical Festival (NYMF), where he oversaw the production of 30 new musicals over three weeks in Times Square. He shares artistic responsibilities with Artistic Director Shelley Butler (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical in Tokyo, Japan), who has directed the premieres of more than two dozen new plays, including the world-premiere production of the TONY-nominated play A Doll's House, Part Two by Lucas Hnath. Combined, West and Shelley have seven Broadway credits between them.

The festival's closing cabaret event will be a combination of a cabaret-style performance paired with an Inside the Actor's Studio-type interview with Broadway celebrities Jarrod Spector and Kelli Barrett. The performers will tell stories from working on the Broadway productions of Les Misérables, Jersey Boys, Beautiful, The Cher Show, Rock of Ages, and more, then will give the audience a chance to hear songs from some of those shows performed live. Spector was nominated for both a Tony and an Outer Critics Circle Award for his performance as Barry Mann in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. He made his Broadway debut as Gavroche in the original production of Les Misérables and went on to play a record-breaking 1,500 performances as Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys on Broadway as well as originating the role of Sonny Bono in The Cher Show. Barrett is a stage and screen actor with credits in Apple TV's Dickinson, Marvel's The Punisher, and the Paramount+ series Younger. She also starred in the original Off-Broadway cast of Rock of Ages and the original Broadway casts of Baby It's You!, Zhivago, and Gettin' the Band Back Together.

The festival's board of directors includes Nancy Bennett, Mark Blonstein, Chip Egan, Tami McNew, Shannon Roberts, David Sims, and Susie White. The general manager is Morgan Blaich-Patterson.

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