The Players Centre Presents the 2020 Players New Play Festival Virtually

The 2020 Players New Play Festival has gone virtual! In order to stay safe and still have our friends listen and experience our 5 finalists, you can now see these brand new, never-before-performed plays through Zoom June 29 through July 3, 2020. The five chosen plays are performed in readers-style theater by actors under the leadership of a local director with a talk-back following the show to give the playwright some constructive criticism led by Managing Artistic Director Jeffery Kin.

Tickets must be purchased by NOON the day of the show. If you want to take advantage of the group pricing, make sure you decide that when you first purchase, please! The day of the show you will receive a Zoom link to your email by 5pm that evening!

Experience a different show each night!  For $10 each, three shows for $24 or see all 5 for $35.

“This year, our 15th year of The Players New Play Festival is evolving like never before. The play reading judges read plays via email and Sandra Musicante, my co-coordinator, handling all the business of reading and judging without anyone leaving the comfort of their homes,” says Managing Artistic Director Jeffery Kin.  “It’s quite exciting for The Players team to be able to still give area artists these opportunities and is proof that The Players is dedicated to keeping the arts alive in these challenging times.”

Monday June 29 at 7:30pm
Echo Nevada
written By Anna Brennen
Directed by Don Walker

A blizzard threatens; it is 1948. Echo, an orphaned Native American girl, is celebrating her 14th birthday. She is overjoyed when ranch owner, Donaghue, announces he plans to marry his cook, Copey, and adopt Echo. John C., a wrangler, incites an event that causes both he and Echo to flee into the now raging blizzard. Donaghue and the other ranch-hands attempt to restrain them in this trenchant and meaningful frontier drama.

Tuesday, June 30 at 7:30pm
The Manager
written By Douglas Gearhart
Directed by Alyssa Goudy

Rusty is a little league manager who is facing divorce and is struggling with apocalyptic visions of a fallen world. In his final season as baseball coach for his son Axl, Rusty grasps at this one last chance to hang on to just a bit more childhood innocence before he discovers some harsh and embarrassing truths about his dad. But the season is coming to an end, and their future together as a family is uncertain.

Wednesday, July 1 at 7:30pm
The Rabbit Test
written By Walton Beacham
Directed by Amanda Schlacter

Although shaped by the playwright’s imagination, most of the background in The Rabbit Test is factual: froth and fizzle methods for determining pregnancy; objections to the early pregnancy test that delayed its approval for ten years. The first female vibrator was called the wiggly-jiggly. Fake-a-Baby is an actual website for ordering deceptive pregnancy data. And while the female libido enhancer has not been fully developed or approved, researchers have concluded that the earring delivery system is promising. Whether all this seems wildly unreasonable, illogical, inappropriate, or just ridiculous and silly, these absurdities have contributed to controlling women’s reproductive options for two hundred years.

Thursday, July 2 at 7:30pm
Next Wife
Written By Kathryn Powell
Directed by Michele Strauss

The ghost of a novelists wife comes back to help him find his next wife. Or is she there to end his writers block? Or perhaps both?

Friday, July 3 at 7:30pm
Medium Well Done
written By Jim Moss
Directed by Hal Granholm

In this murder mystery farce, five strangers are invited to wealthy philanthropist’s mansion and treated to a séance. But the trick is on the guests when the spirits of past homicides turn up. To keep their secrets hidden, at least one guest is willing to kill again…