Feb 16 – 17, 2019 & Feb 22 – 24, 2019
SCHEDULE
Enjoy the first readings in a laid-back setting that’s perfect for local theatre lovers, students and first-timers.
• Be the first to hear the latest drafts of our featured new play readings
• Meet your next favorite Colorado playwright at the Local Playwrights’ Slam
The Launch Weekend schedule will be announced when packages and A La Carte tickets go on sale in early January 2019.
Sign up for an email alert when Launch Weekend goes on sale
Chock full of opportunities to connect and experience the next draft of the plays, this robust weekend is perfect for industry professionals, everyday theatre lovers, subscribers and students.
• Hear the refined readings of fully-workshopped plays
• Be among the first to see world premiere productions of two new plays
• Enjoy a one-night only concert performance of Rattlesnake Kate, a concept album-turned musical with music and lyrics by The Lumineers’ Neyla Pekarek and book by Karen Hartman
• Mingle with artists and industry leaders at meals, events and parties
• Discover up-and-coming talent at High School Playwriting Competition readings
Fri, Feb 22
11AM: Registration in the Helen Bonfils Theatre Complex Lobby
11:30AM: Lunch in the Seawell Ballroom
12:30PM: First new play readings
- Orange Track: Ricketson Theatre
- Blue Track: The Jones Theatre
4PM: Second new play readings
- Blue Track: Ricketson Theatre
- Orange Track: The Jones Theatre
6:30-7:30PM: Summit Dinner in the Seawell Ballroom
8PM: The Whistleblower in the Space Theatre
10PM: Playwrights’ Slam in The Jones Theatre
Sat, Feb 23
9AM: High School Playwriting Competition & Continental Breakfast in the Conservatory Theatre
11:30AM: Lunch in The Crescent
12:30PM: Third new play readings
- Orange Track: The Jones Theatre
- Blue Track: Ricketson Theatre
4PM: Rattlesnake Kate in the Seawell Ballroom
Dinner on your own
8PM: Last Night and the Night Before in the Ricketson Theatre
OR Subscriber Optional Add-On Event
- High School Playwriting Competition in Conservatory Theatre
9:30PM-12AM: Summit Party in the Seawell Ballroom
Sun, Feb 24
12PM: Fourth new play readings
- Blue Track: The Jones Theatre
- Orange Track: Ricketson Theatre
Extend your experience: Add on a performance of Anna Karenina in our Stage Theatre Thursday, February 21 or Sunday, February 24 at 6:30pm.
2019 READINGS
Get to know the featured plays and playwrights of the 2019 Summit
In The Upper Room
By Beaufield Berry-Fisher
Meet the Berrys, a multi-generational black family living under one roof in the 1970s. Their lives orbit around Rose, the controlling matriarch who has indoctrinated fear into every member of the house while hiding dark secrets from her mysterious past. With the exception of her mild-mannered husband, Rose’s relatives try to assert themselves and break away from the core of chaos she has created. Colorism, loyalty, and twisted family dynamics are all at play in this dramatic dark comedy about the ties that bind and break us, from playwright, novelist, and activist Beaufield Berry-Fisher.
Beaufield Berry-Fisher is an Omaha-based playwright, novelist and arts education professional. Her work has been performed across the country and in multiple conferences. She has served as a guest artist with Inge Fest in Independence, Kansas as well as on several panels and boards, including Vice President of the Omaha Entertainment and Arts awards and as an educator with Omaha Performing Arts. She lives life with her husband Rob and their sons, Shine Avett and Oscar Moses.
Wally World
By Isaac Gomez
It’s Christmas Eve and a group of Wally World employees are about to lose it. On the one day of the year the mega-department superstore is supposed to close its doors, secrets come to life that may destroy more than their holiday cheer. Their manager Andy is doing everything in her power to keep her store in line and her employees in check. But can hard truths from her past ruin everything she’s ever worked for? Inspired by his own mother’s experience and infused with his signature “poignant social commentary” (Chicago Reader), Isaac Gomez’s Wally World is a hysterical, touching examination of finding magic in the mundane as eleven employees do everything they can to find purpose in a place that has never seen purpose in them.
Isaac Gomez is a Chicago-based playwright originally from El Paso, Texas/Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. His play La Ruta will be receiving its world premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre Company this fall. He is currently under commission from South Coast Repertory, the Goodman Theatre, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, The Theatre School at DePaul University, Writers Theater, Steep Theatre and StepUp Chicago Playwrights. He is the recipient of the 2018 Dramatists Guild Lanford Wilson award, an inaugural 3Arts “Make A Wave” grantee, a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists, an Artistic Associate with Victory Gardens Theater, among other honors and artistic affiliations.
You Lost Me
By Bonnie Metzgar
In 1824, 17-year-old Ann Harvey saves 160 Irish people from a wreck off of Newfoundland’s Shipwreck Coast, making her an instant hero along this remote and rocky shore. Almost 200 years later, the Harvey family homestead has become the Shipwreck Inn, and present-day proprietress Ann Harvey has just started a new blog for the landmark with the support and ridicule of her teenage nephew, Joe-L. A memory house for all those lost at sea, this Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Festival finalist is a poetic drama that maps the responsibility of the survivors to remember their past and to find their way home.
Bonnie Metzgar is a playwright, director, dramaturg and producer who specializes in creating socially-provocative theatre works. From 2008-2013, Metzgar served as Artistic Director of About Face Theatre in Chicago, the largest theatre in the US dedicated to advancing the cultural dialogue on sexuality, politics and gender identity. Metzgar is the recipient of a 2018 MacDowell Colony fellowship, the Carl Djerassi Fellowship in Playwriting at the University of Wisconsin, a 2013 NEA commission and she is a recent member of the Goodman Theatre’s resident Playwrights Unit. Her plays have been finalists for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Festival and selected for the Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha.
twenty50
By Tony Meneses
In the year 2050, Andres Salazar is running for office. By this time, Latinos have become the majority, but race issues are nowhere near resolved. In this tricky political environment, he must decide whether identifying himself as a Hispanic American will help or hinder him on Election Day. When a mysterious stranger appears at his house, his family rallies around him to save his imperiled campaign in this insightful drama from rising playwright Tony Meneses, “a distinctive voice worthy of attention” (New Jersey Star Ledger).
Tony Meneses was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and raised in Albuquerque/Dallas. His plays include Guadalupe in the Guest Room and The Women of Padilla, which both had world premieres at Two River Theater. He’s an alum of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, Ars Nova Play Group, Sundance Institute Playwrights Retreat at Ucross, Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship, Youngblood, and has been previously developed at the LARK Playwrights’ Week and the Berkeley Rep Ground Floor. He’s a two-time recipient of the Kennedy Center Latinx Playwriting Award, is published by Dramatists Play Service, and is currently under commission from the Denver Center and Two River Theater. Education: UT Austin, Iowa Playwrights Workshop, Juilliard.
Rattlesnake Kate
Music and lyrics by Neyla Pekarek
Book by Karen Hartman
Around 100 years ago near Greeley, Colorado, Kate Slaughterback came upon a migration of rattlesnakes while on her horse with her young son. To protect her child and herself, she shot as many snakes as she could with the ammo at hand and decapitated the rest of them with a no-trespassing sign. Neyla Pekarek (cellist and vocalist of folk-rock band The Lumineers) has woven Kate’s biography — including six husbands and one decades-long romance through letters — into an enthralling song cycle. Playwright Karen Hartman joins forces with Pekarek to transform this material into a fully-fleshed musical that delivers Western lore through a modern lens. Join us for this one-night-only event during the Festival Weekend featuring a performance accompanied by a live band.
Neyla Pekarek began playing cello at age 9 in her native city of Denver, Colorado. She studied Musical Theatre and earned a degree in Music Education at UNC in Greeley, CO. In 2010, she joined the Denver folk-rock group The Lumineers as a cellist and vocalist, playing on their GRAMMY-nominated self-titled debut and follow-up albums, selling out Madison Square Garden, and touring with U2.
Karen Hartman‘s Good Faith premieres at Yale Repertory Theater in 2019, directed by Kenny Leon. Hartman is the recipient of a McKnight Residency, a Fulbright Scholarship, a Hodder Fellowship, a Jerome Fellowship, and is a New Dramatists alumna. In spring 2018, Hartman’s The Book of Joseph became the highest grossing play in Everyman Theatre’s history. Joseph and two other recent plays Roz and Ray (Edgerton New Play Prize) and Project Dawn (NEA Grant, NNPN Rolling World Premiere) had ten productions in the 2016-18 seasons. A Senior Artist in Residence at University of Washington, Seattle, Hartman nonetheless lives in Brooklyn with her family. Visit her portfolio
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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Contact Us
Have a question about the Summit that’s not answered here? First-timer and not sure where to start? We’re here to help. Let us know what’s on your mind and our Summit Producer Grady Soapes will get back to you soon.
Thank You to Our Generous Sponsors
2019 Producing Partners
Sponsored by:
AT&T, Daniel L. Ritchie, Transamerica
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