Description

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The Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival identifies and supports new plays that feature robust roles for college-aged actors, while providing a laboratory to train students in the skills and ethics inherent to work with living playwrights on new works. This collection features the five short plays that were Official Selections of the 2021 Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival—all written by playwrights based in Missouri (the home state of both the festival and its Pulitzer Prize-winning namesake). From the story of a twenty-something couple doing battle with their new Home Owners Association to a group of high school students coping with the death of a classmate to an action figure trying to save another toy from the tyranny of its child, the plays are funny, touching, and smart. They can be performed individually or make a wonderful evening of theater, all with robust and challenging roles for actors in their teens and twenties.

About the Author

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Kenneth L. Stilson is best known as the author of the classic text, Acting Is Believing, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th editions, with the late Larry D. Clark and the late Charles McGaw, which has been adopted by more than 150 universities and colleges around the world. Professor of Acting, Directing and Musical Theatre and Founding Chair of The Jeanine Larson Dobbins Conservatory of Theatre and Dance in The Earl & Margie Holland School of Visual & Performing Arts at Southeast Missouri State University, Kenn played an instrumental role in building the professional training programs in theatre. Kitt Lavoie is a director, playwright, and filmmaker. He is the only playwright ever to have their work performed on all seven continents during their lifetime. Plays and musical books include Sabbatical (Lincoln Center), Kiki Baby (Theater for the American Musical Prize), The Median Line (Herbert J. Robinson Award for Dramatic Writing), realer than that (winner, Samuel French New Play Festival), And it came to pass in those days… (Collective Press), Good Enough (Vintage Press), and Bank & Trust (Vintage Press).