by Team Actors on February 05, 2019
Louisville, KY–Actors Theatre of Louisville is proud to announce the return of the New Voices Young Playwrights Festival. This year’s lineup will feature eight new plays by local high school students. The 14th annual festival will be sponsored by LG&E, KU Energy, and the Robert W. Rounsavall Jr. Family Foundation. New Voices will run from April 23-25 in the Bingham Theatre.
This year, 836 students submitted plays in consideration for the New Voices Festival. This includes students from 32 schools in 6 counties in Kentucky and Indiana. Selected plays for the festival were chosen by a group of 37 readers, made up of Actors Theatre staff and volunteers. The winning playwrights represent seven different high schools.
This year’s festival marks the first time a winner has been chosen from Washington County, KY (Washington County High School) and the second time a winner has been selected from the Kentucky School for the Blind.
The festival is produced by the Education Department at Actors Theatre. Each piece is assigned a director, a dramaturg, a design team, and a group of actors from the Professional Training Company (PTC), who work in conjunction with the playwrights to bring these pieces to life. Together, each team participates in workshops, production meetings, and a full rehearsal process before the festival in April. Each year, the plays produced in the festival are also published in the New Voices Young Playwrights Anthology.
Actors Theatre’s Professional Training Company is generously supported by a significant grant from The Roy Cockrum Foundation. The $1.2 million award supports grants over a ten-year period for each apprentice during the nine-month program, and enables year-round employment for the program’s leadership. Founded by Roy Cockrum, the Foundation supports world-class performing arts projects in not-for-profit professional theatres throughout the United States. The Foundation considers grants by invitation only and is dedicated to helping non-profit theatres reach beyond their normal scope of activities and undertake ambitious and creative productions.
The selections for this year’s 14th Annual New Voices Young Playwrights Festival include:
The Wilting
by Gabriel Cora (Floyd Central High School)
The Circle of Leaf
by Sophie Ice (Assumption High School)
Purple
by Katelyn Spencer (Washington County High School)
Misaligned Skies
by Ariana Tulay (Moore Traditional High School)
What’s More Important
by Claire Binford (Male High School)
Luna
by Maddie Gaughan (Youth Performing Arts High School)
Sickcom
by Sara Sandfort (Male High School)
A Man of Dance
by Corbin Gravil (Kentucky School for the Blind)
Honorable Mentions:
Just Another Hunt
by Abigail Scott (New Albany High School)
Oh Crap! Bees Are Attacking Our Airbase
by Quinton Byrd (Jeffersonville High School)
Listing Information
14th New Voices Young Playwrights Festival
An Evening of New Work
Written by Local High School Students
Sponsored by LG&E, KU Energy and the Robert W. Rounsavall Jr. Family Foundation
Actors Theatre of Louisville
316 W. Main Street
Louisville, KY 40202
Bingham Theatre
April 23, 24, 25 at 7:00 p.m.
Tickets are $5, plus sales tax and fees.
Tickets will be available starting in April.
Call the Box Office at 502.584.1205 or visit ActorsTheatre.org.