Called the “Super Bowl of Theatre” by OnStage Colorado, the Denver Center Theatre Company’s Colorado New Play Summit rests at the pinnacle of new play development in America. And this year’s 19^th annual event on March 1 and 2 was no exception.

More than 1,500 tickets were distributed to theatre enthusiasts who gathered for readings of new works from some of the industry’s brightest playwrights:

bogfriends by jose sebastian alberdi is an exploration of love, power dynamics, and the preservation of the past that connects six characters from different times and places as they navigate their relationships around an ancient Irish bog.

In How to Conquer America: A Mostly True History of Yogurt by David Myers, Arlene Hoffman’s ad campaign transforms yogurt into a lucrative phenomenon. But when her late father interferes, she must confront family, culture, and appropriation in a heartfelt take on the American Dream.

In Renaissance Rome, artists battle for a coveted commission, but poet Beatrice seeks to shape the content, as If God Were Blue by Carey Perloff explores art, power, faith, and the creative struggle.

Held hostage in her office, psychologist Dr. Devra Mendoza must outmaneuver danger, confronting buried truths about the world, her work, and herself in Rust on Bone by Bianca Sams, a gripping psychological thriller.

Attendees also enjoyed the world premieres of Jake Brasch’s The Reservoir and Sandy Rustin’s The Suffragette’s Murder, both of which read in 2023.

Since its founding, the Summit has introduced 70 new plays, over half of which have received full Theatre Company productions before going on to more than 250 subsequent engagements across the country.