PLAYS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY and the winners are...
Please note that all story concepts and synopses are copyrighted by the authors. Where author contact information is provided, they have indicated a willingness to receive correspondence from interested parties.

2006-2007 1st Place - Two-Act Play

The Burning Season

Jacqueline Goldfinger Jacqueline Pardue Goldfinger is a dramaturge and award-winning playwright from Tallahassee, Florida. She earned her M.F.A. from the University of Southern California (2004) and B.A. from Agnes Scott College (2000). Her work has been developed and produced around the country and in Sydney, Australia. Her independent film, "Firefly," was produced and distributed by Meteor International. Her adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" is published by Playscripts. For recent announcements and detailed information, go to: www.jacquelinegoldfinger.com

A love triangle with a surreal twist: A husband (Tommy) returns home from prison to discover that his wife (Amma C.) cheated on him while he was away. While dealing with her betrayal, we learn the family shame and secrets behind his imprisonment.

2006-2007 2nd Place - Two-Act Play

Without You

Polychronis Koutsakis Polychronis Koutsakis was born in 1974, in Chania, Crete, Greece. He lives in Canada, in Dundas, Ontario. He earned the first State Prize for best Greek play in 2007 for his full-length play “The Rotation System.” His play “When He Was Happy” won him the second State Prize for best Greek play in 2005. These three prizes, awarded annually by the Greek Ministry of Culture, are the highest distinction for a play in Greece. He has written multiple plays, authored nine books and is an award winning poet. He is currently an Assistant Professor at McMaster University, Canada. His web site, containing the latest information on his work, is www.polychronis.com

Do you believe in eternal love? If you do, how far would you go to prove it?

2006-2007 3rd Place - Two-Act Play

Consumed

Chris Widney Chris Widney has written many full-length plays including “Big, Fat And Ugly With A Moustache” (Perry Street Theatre, NYC), “Family Men” (Arden Theatre, Philadelphia), “These People” (Chernuchin Theatre, NYC), and “The Normals” (Luna Stage, NJ). Other full-lengths, one-acts, musicals and screenplays have been presented, read, work-shopped and honored in theatres and contests around the country including Miami’s City Theatre, The Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles and the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe, NYC. He co-authored “Keep Eye On Ball, Is Most Important One Thing I Tell You”, a book about squash and participated in the BMI Composer / Lyricist Workshop. Chris is a member of The Dramatists Guild.

1937. Tuberculosis claims the lives of as many as one out of every seven people on the planet and no one knows how to stop it. However, in the small town of Saranac Lake, New York, modern medicine has determined that sitting outside in the freezing cold and doing absolutely nothing has had miraculous results. Desperate to survive, thousands flock to “take the cure.”

2006-2007 Honorable Mention – Two-Act Play

Moscow, Utah

Krista Knight Krista Knight's play, Anaerobic Respiration, won the 2005 Southwestern States National Playwriting Contest and was produced in the 2005 New York Fringe Festival.   Her short play, Apricot Supernovas, was published in 14 Hills and was a finalist for the 2006 Humana Festival's Heideman Award at Actors Theatre of Louisville. Another play, Biotintillation, is currently a finalist for the 2007 Heideman.   Her work has been staged at the Ashland New Plays Festival, Dixon Place and The Women's Work Theatre in New York, LiveGirls! in Seattle, The Attic Theatre in Los Angeles, Harvest Theatre in Toledo, Panoply in Huntsville, Alabama, Goshen College in Indiana, the Pan Theatre in San Francisco, and the Bus Barn Stage Company in Los Altos. It has been developed at Abingdon in New York, First Stage in Los Angeles, the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, and the Magic Theatre and the Playwrights' Center in San Francisco. Krista has been in Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida and the UCROSS Foundation in Wyoming. She is a graduate of Brown University and the 2007 Page 73 Playwriting Fellow.

Two sisters are trapped in Basmanny, Utah, to take care of their 16 year old sister who is incapacitated in a wheelchair after being attacked at the zoo. Both older sisters work from home as telephone operators for a holiday supply company and are competing for a promotion to the company's headquarters in Moscow, Utah.  Both are desperate to get it, but all three sisters get more than they expected.

2006-2007 1st Place – One-Act Play	A Harlequin Romance
Anne Mabry Anne Mabry is a fine arts educator living, working and making art of various kinds outside of Houston Texas. This year she is on a leave of absence from teaching to finish her graduate studies in art education as a Priddy Fellow in Arts Leadership and Advocacy at the University of North Texas in Denton. Her husband Cliff and seven cats are keeping the home fires burning.	Columbine is searching for IT by pushing every button on a wall. Harlequin is more interested in romance. When things start falling from the sky accompanied by a loud noise as the result of pushing seemingly random buttons, moral issues present themselves which Columbine and Harlequin enlist the audience in addressing.

2006-2007 2nd Place – One-Act Play

Sparks

Louis Felder Louis Felder was born in San Francisco and received his Masters Degree in Writing from Indiana University.   His full-length plays include Tribune ( 2004 Silver Medalist, Pinter Review Prize for Drama), COLD FEET (produced 2005 Midland Community Theatre).  His short plays include FLIGHT OF FANCY (Samuel French), and THE MAGIC KINGDOM (Merriwether Co.)  Other short plays have been produced in Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and San Francisco.

A woman is about to leave her husband and run off with the young cab driver.  Each wants to live a fantasy life – Leila wants to become the sexy heroine of her lurid romance paperbacks, and Darrell would like to be a cool movie desperado.  This is their chance to begin again.  But before they can leave for Las Vegas, her husband returns.

2006-2007 3rd Place – One-Act Play

Traffic Jam

Jennifer Bogush Ms. Bogush is an actress whose acting credits include Guiding Light, and As the World Turns. She recently played the lead role in her film, “Trio,” which won Best Short Screenplay in the Queens International Film Festival 2007. It was produced and directed by Danny Aiello III. Another short screenplay, “Livin’ In a ‘V’ World,” won Best Screenplay in the Terror Film Festival 2007 (Cash Prize), was a 1^st Round Qualifier in the American Gem Screenwriting Contest out of 1200 entries, and is currently a Semi-Finalist in the BlueCat Screenplay Competition out of over 200 entries. “Traffic Jam” was also a winner in the Emerging Artist’s (NYC) Contest out of over 250 entries, and was a Semi-finalist in the Moondance International Film Festival. Another one-act, “Low Grade Chocolate,” received honorable mention in the Writer’s Digest Competition out of 19,000 submissions. Ms. Bogush is a Member of the Dramatists Guild. Her web site is www.JenniferBogush.com

TRAFFIC JAM tells the story of Cassie, an absolute train wreck, who waits for Death to arrive in a hospital waiting room. She wishes to assume the mantle of the strong woman in her family, and slay her monster grandfather if Death will not do his job. Cassie is absolutely convinced that he is stuck in traffic. She meets Gary, who (like everyone else in her life) betrays her.

2006-2007 Honorable Mention – One-Act Play

Twilight Time

Chris Callard Chris Callard been writing and editing magazines and newspapers in Southern California for 25 years, and has had a number of plays produced in the area over that time. Last year his humorous fiction was published in Book By Authors, a compilation of Los Angeles-area writers, and on AbsoluteWrite.com. There is also a kind of blog (who doesn’t have a blog?) with a brief sampling of his humorous fiction at www.CallardColumn.Blogspot.com

Twilight Time is a glimpse at a marriage that has gone on way too long between a middle-aged couple. It is told in a rather absurdist comic style and takes place during one evening in Rollo and Rowena’s bedroom. Will this be a night of endings or continuations?

2005 Winner

Monique's Bad Week

Amy Berlin and Ann Bucci Amy and Ann are lawyers, actors, and friends, who met while performing with various improvisational comedy troupes in Richmond, Virginia. MONIQUE'S BAD WEEK, their first full-length play, was a finalist in the Seven Devils Playwright's Conference and the Panowski Playwriting Competition and a semi-finalist in the McClaren Comedy Competition. Their short play, THE JOSHUA PLANT, was named a finalist in the Chicago Dramatists Fall Ten-Minute Workshop. Ann, who is now a resident of Phoenix, Arizona, and Amy are currently studying with the Gotham Writer's Workshop and expanding THE JOSHUA PLANT.

And what a week it is. Her theater internship is lost, the trust fund is tied up, and Mother has signed an anti-enabling pact. Monique's dream of finding her breakthrough roll on the Great White Way seems to be doomed. What is a girl to do at 42? Amy Berlin and Ann Bucci have served up a delightful comedy that follows our plucky heroine through a series of misadventures as she determines to follow her heart and make it big. What ho!

2005 - 1st Runner-up

Widower's Poker

Jim Henry Two-time Playwrights Theater winner, Jim Henry, is an actor and writer in the Chicago area and is a Resident Playwright and on the Board of Directors at Chicago Dramatists Theatre. His home theatre is Chicago Street Theatre in Valparaiso, Indiana. The Seventh Monarch is the winner of three playwriting awards: Plays for the 21st Century (Dallas, TX), DramaRama 2000 (San Francisco, CA) and The Panowski Award (Marquette, MI). The play recently opened at the Road Theatre in Los Angeles. Mr. Henry's other plays include The Angels of Lemnos, Busting the Fence, Mairzy Doats, Widower's Poker and A Worthy Choice. He has been produced throughout the US and Australia. He has authored three screenplays, The Seventh Monarch, Moon Shadows, and The Angels of Lemnos. Moon Shadows is a Fourth Place winner in the Final Draft Screenplay Competition. The Angels of Lemnos won Third Place at the Hollywood Film Festival and was a finalist in the Sundance Feature Film Project two years in a row. Jim and his wife, Dona, just celebrated their twenty-fifth anniversary and are blessed with eight children and twin granddaughters.

There are the players, the pension fund, and the nagging question: Who will be the last man standing? Billy, Earl, Kooch, and Dale have been playing poker for years, contributing regularly to a pension fund that has grown to a substantial amount. The last living member of the group will inherit the fund. As the members of the group start to die, their compatriots continue to play their hands for them and argue about the disposition of the pot. In a story of loss and aging, Jim Henry gives us a bittersweet portrait of the bonds friendships forge and that crusty love that can happen between men.

2004	MIGRATED COMPETITION TO E-FORMAT

2003

CANCELLED

2002 Winner	Rare Times Altogether
Ted Enik and Kip Rosser	Synopsis

2002 - 1st Runner-up	Underground Woman
2002 Robert Yearley	Synopsis

2002 - 2nd Runner-up	Ephemera
2002 Playwright	Synopsis

2002 - 3rd Runner-up	Dark Ages
2002 Playwright	Synopsis

2001

BACH AT LEIPZIG

Itamar Moses Itamar Moses is the author of the full-length plays Outrage, Celebrity Row, The Four of Us, Yellowjackets, Back Back Back, and Completeness, and various short plays and one-acts. He is presently adapting Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress Of Solitude. His work has appeared Off-Broadway and elsewhere in New York, at regional theatres across the country and in Canada, and has been published by Faber & Faber, Heinemann Press, Playscripts Inc., Samuel French, Inc., and Vintage. He has received new play commissions from The McCarter Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Wilma Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, and South Coast Rep Repertory. Mr. Moses holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU and has taught playwriting at Yale and NYU. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, MCC Playwrights Coalition, Naked Angels Mag 7, and is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect. He was born in Berkeley, California, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

A real anecdote from music history provides the basis for this comedic ensemble play. The scene is 1722, in the city of Leipzig, Germany. Johann Kuhnau, the revered organist at the Thomaskirche, dies, leaving a highly desirable musician's post vacant. In order to choose a replacement, the Leipzig council invites a short list of musicians from across Germany to audition for the job. Among the candidates is the organist from then, thirty-four years old, and eager to leave his current post: Johann Sebastian Bach. From our vantage point, everyone else at the audition is now little more than a footnote in the biography of the greatest Baroque composer in history, but for those present at the time the contest was real, the stakes high, and the outcome far from certain. Indeed, the frontrunner for the post was the most famous organist in Germany at the time: Georg Phillip Telemann. It's from this historical springboard that the play takes its dramaturgical leap into fictionalized events. With seven characters and a single location, Bach at Leipzig dramatizes what might have happened surrounding the Leipzig auditions in 1722: the sudden death of Kuhnau; the arrival of the various candidates for the post; their rivalries and foul play; their envy of Telemann; and the secrets they all carry. Each of the characters narrates the play through letters to loved ones, as though it's his own story, their commentary eventually overlapping like the multiple voices of a fugue. Bach himself never appears on stage, to highlight the fact that, as far as any of these men knew Bach would end up a biographical footnote for one of them. The play ends with a coda in which, years later, two of the organists return to Leipzig, just in time to witness another death. Only, this time, death is not the final word.

2001

THE BOB AND AL SHOW

Geoffrey Franklin Howard Geoffrey Howard is one of those theatre folks who didn't listen to the sound advice to concentrate and specialize in one area while ignoring the others. As a result, he has considerable experience as director, acting coach, set and light designer and scenic carpenter. He has also dabbled in acting theory writing and most recently playwriting. Mr. Howard and his wife, Tiffany, are both theatre professors still in love with each other and their profession.

What happens when characters talk back to their playwright as they are being written? Bob, Al, and Carol endure the rough start of the century as they are thrown into three one-acts designed for one evening of theatre. Barreling through exposition, conflicts, and futile opening lines, they finally land in a mystery murder plot. But how can there be a new mystery play when every plot line known to man has been worked to death already? Much less, can this be done with only three characters?

2001

FIRST CHILL

Anne Flanagan Anne Flanagan heralds from small-town Ohio, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Ohio Wesleyan University with a double major in Theater and Creative Writing and taught public school in New York City's South Bronx (and lived to tell!) She currently lives in Los Angeles, CA where she works as a private investigator. Anne wrote and appeared in two short films. "House of Hope" won the 13th annual "Visions of the US" National contest sponsored by the American Film Institute and Sony Studios. Her other short, "QT Does Jane," was a finalist in Caroline's Comedy Club "Funny Shorts" contest. Ms. Flanagan has performed improvisational comedy with Second City and HitTeam in New York, and The Groundlings and Improv Olympic in Los Angeles. Her comedy review "Bathroom Crier" was the LA Weekly Pick of the Week. She was named Women in Theater's Best Actress in 1997 and was a winner of Theater Geo's "Best of the Best" monologue contests, performing self-penned works for three consecutive years. FIRST CHILL won the 2001 Julie Harris Playwrights Award (2nd place) and was one of the four finalists in the Plays for the 21st Century competition sponsored by the Playwright's Theater Incorporated in Dallas, Texas. It was also one of the top ten finalists for the Chesterfield Writer's Film Project Fellowship in 2001 *and* 2002. "May the third time be a charm."

FIRST CHILL is a full-length play which asks the question: How one can honor the wishes of another without knowing 100% what those wishes are? This bittersweet drama takes place in modern day, small-town Pennsylvania. Clara Scott (50's), a former English professor, now suffers from early onset Alzheimer's disease. Her adult daughters, Shelly Scott (early to mid thirties) and Fiona (late 20's) are faced with the difficulty of caring for their Mother as they struggle with the question that, had Clara known ahead of time she'd fall victim to this disease, would she have chosen to keep living? Whatever the girls decide, there will be no confirmation that the decision made is the "right" one. Can they make a life-altering decision based solely on instinct, assumptions, and love?

2001

PARTITION

Ira Hauptman Ira Hauptman () is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama. His plays include Private Messiah at the Audrey Skirball-Kenis Theatre and at Moving Arts, both in Los Angeles; Monument Valley, read by A.S.K. Theatre Projects; Cinema of the Year Zero at the Manhattan Theatre Club; Walkman and The Fall of Entyrondelphiacocomworld, both at FirstStage in Hollywood. Mr. Hauptman has written for Partisan Review, The New Republic, Parabasis and other magazines. He teaches at Queens College.

Two geniuses. Two worlds. One maddening riddle. In 1913, a young, self-taught mathematical genius in India named Srinivasa Ramanujan is invited to England to work with G. H. Hardy, a Cambridge professor. But just as mathematics draws these two men from vastly different cultures together, it also possesses the power to destroy them. A riveting fantasy based on real events.

2000

BIG BAND

Natalie Gaupp     Natalie Gaupp holds an M.A. and B.F.A. from U.T. Arlington, and A.A. from Lon Morris College. She has professional acting and directing credits throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, with additional credits in Miami and NYC. As a playwright, she has has won numerous regional and national honors, and has developed her works internationally with the Association for Theatre in Higher Education's New Play Development Workshop (Chicago, Toronto, NYC), Inner Space Theatre (NYC), Pelican Theatre (Miami), and Southwest Theatre and Film Association, as well as with local venues such as Watertower Theatre, Playwright's Theatre of Dallas, Theatre Three, and SceneShop at Arts Fifth Avenue. Natalie is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Dallas.

It is the early 1980s, and COURTENAY DEES, a black trombone player whose career was at it peak during the height of the Big Band era, has now retired to a hovel of an apartment in Florida on South Beach.  Times are tough as he struggles to make ends meet and tries to figure out where he will go next (--when his landlady, EUGENIA, lets him now that the tenants of the decrepit apartment building are soon to be evicted to make way for a luxury hotel).  COURTENAY seems to be at a standstill in his life, holding on to memories of his youth and his heydays of playing the Big Band circuit; however, an unreconciled struggle with a white musician he once thought was his friend, JACK FORNETT, ceases to be just a memory when JACK suddenly appears on COURTENAY's front door one evening.  In dealing with unresolved issues from his past (including the tragic, early death of his beloved wife, JEWEL), COURTENAY finds the strength and creative energy to move on with his life, and to rediscover his passion for his music.

2000

CLASS ACT

David Lohrey David was born in a small town on the Hudson River in New York. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley. David’s plays have found numerous productions, including at the Bubblzz Theatre Co., Bangalore, India, by The Barnstormers at Johns Hopkins University, and at Neuchatel Junior College in Switzerland. 2007 saw his play “One, Two, Three” produced at the Milton Academy in Massachusetts. His one-act “In a Newark Minute” has recently been translated into Spanish, while “Sperm Counts,” another one-act, was translated into Japanese by Professor Hideo Horibe. “Jigsaw Confession,” David’s full-length, which was work-shopped at the Black Dahlia Theater in Hollywood, is opening in January, 2008, in Ottawa, Canada.

The drama is a cross between ‘Oleanna’ and ‘Up the Down Staircase.’ Miss Vanderhoff is a late-middle-aged schoolteacher accused of abusing a student in an incident we build toward in flashbacks. Is she a perpetrator of brutality or the victim of a system gone out of control? Is teaching today 'a calling' or a curse? Has society 'replaced knowledge with happiness as the goal of education?' The play toys with our perception of Miss Vanderhoff, a 30-year teaching veteran who has ‘more or less lived in a classroom since childhood,’ but has become increasingly cynical and embittered. Mr. Stiles, the school district official, interrogates her after the unfortunate incident, as he seeks both to understand what really happened and to convince Miss Vanderhoff to accept a deal the school district has worked out with the parents of the student-accuser.

2000	PANAMA
Mike Folie Mike Folie is an actor-turned-playwright whose plays have been produced Off-Broadway, regionally around the U.S. and internationally, winning several awards. He is also a freelance speech writer. He lives in Rockland County, New York with his wife, Frances Mayer, a high school English teacher, and their two children, Brendan and Lizzie.	A middle-aged man is enraged when his doctor tells him he will die someday. He embarks on a cross-country road trip with his wife to find the secret of eternal life, picking up a pair of Gen-x hitchhikers and an elderly couple who may or may not be his parents along the way. He finds what he is looking for at Happy Days, a California theme park based on the work of Samuel Beckett.

2000

THE SEVENTH MONARCH

Jim Henry Jim Henry is an actor and writer in the Chicago area and is a Resident Playwright and on the Board of Directors at Chicago Dramatists Theatre. His home theatre is Chicago Street Theatre in Valparaiso, Indiana. The Seventh Monarch is the winner of three playwriting awards: Plays for the 21st Century (Dallas, TX), DramaRama 2000 (San Francisco, CA) and The Panowski Award (Marquette, MI). The play recently opened at the Road Theatre in Los Angeles. Mr. Henry's other plays include The Angels of Lemnos, Busting the Fence, Mairzy Doats, Widower's Poker and A Worthy Choice. He has been produced throughout the US and Australia. He has authored three screenplays, The Seventh Monarch, Moon Shadows, and The Angels of Lemnos. Moon Shadows is a Fourth Place winner in the Final Draft Screenplay Competition. The Angels of Lemnos won Third Place at the Hollywood Film Festival and was a finalist in the Sundance Feature Film Project two years in a row. Jim and his wife, Dona, just celebrated their twenty-fifth anniversary and are blessed with eight children and twin granddaughters.

Miriam Hemmerick is a mathematical genius who was on the fast track to becoming an astronaut. She mysteriously dropped out of college and has been living in seclusion with her parents for the past twenty years. It is present day and she is forging her parents' social security checks. Her only explanation to their disappearance is that they flew away in a comet.

Home About Us Play Development Artistic Directors
Contest Information Contact Us Links