2008 Playwrights Festival

Featuring: Marla Williams, Daniel Blatman, Randy Benge, Amanda Cawthorne and Cole Simon

On a cold morning sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Quinn Murphy finds himself stranded in Denver, waiting for a flight to take him to the funeral of one of his best friends, Bailey Palmer. Quite content to stew in his grief, he is befriended by a woman named Lily Cameron whose brutal honesty brings out the truth about his friendship with Bai. Back home, his other best friend, Jess Duncan, searches for answers about her friend's mysterious death, finding only his father and more confusion. Interspersed with memories from the last days of Bailey Palmer, flashbacks reveal truths which Quinn and Jess aren't ready to face as the people who loved Bailey the most grapple with the possibility that the accident which killed him might have been something else, and show us that on some level, separation is a state of mind.

(Full-length Drama)

Featuring: Bronwynn Hopton, Mark C. Miller and Dawn Farrell

"How can there be an 'us' if there's no 'me' first?"

Cassie and Jake, a young engaged couple, are attending a required counseling session three months shy of their wedding. Jake brushes off the session as an annoyance (he should be at home, watching the game), and Cassie is too distracted to form an opinion about it one way or the other. Seemingly a quick formality, the counseling session soon becomes a catalyst for the issues simmering just below the surface for this happily betrothed couple, as Cassie is forced to examine what it means to be committed to her partner without losing herself.

(One-act Comedy/Drama)

Featuring: Ben Hackney, Tina Gleason, Kim Martin, John Grote, Brian Cheslik, Emma Harvey and Nathan Wehner

Brent and Ethan, two average NYU students, regularly watch an insipid, syndicated family sitcom, "I'm the Cutest" in an effort to procrastinate and avoid their studies. As avid viewers, they are excited to learn that the show's star, Allison Jennings, will be attending the university that year. The men aren't the only ones with a keen interest in the actress: the National Interest, a sleazy tabloid rag, is looking for someone to spy on the starlet: someone unassuming, who will blend in with the other students; someone who is financially desperate enough to consider trading in his morals for tuition—someone just like Ethan. His life becomes more surreal when the unthinkable happens: Allison Jennings—Ethan's fantasy girl—not only knows that he's alive but begins flirting with him. As the couple grows closer and Ethan's life begins to seem more and more like an idealized sitcom episode, he begins to wonder: how soon before reality hits and he is forced to learn the inevitable "valuable lesson"—one that may cost him everything he holds dear?

(Full-length Comedy)

Featuring: Natalie Lloyd, Charlie Sloin, Joyce Roberts, Dale Bush, Jourdan Sanderson, Glen Garcia and Rachel Wengrow

A self-proclaimed "professional vagabond", T. Paul Sinclair has finally come home after a ten-year absence to try and finish his last attempt at a great novel—only to find that no matter how far you run, the past will catch up with you. His quest for greatness—his "chase for Ozymandias"—is the least of his worries compared to his family. His mother is quite possibly crazy, his kid sister is quite possibly a genius, and his grandfather just happens to be the author of the greatest book of the past century. Lives collide as dark secrets of the Sinclair family, hidden for years, finally emerge, leaving nobody unscathed as T. Paul must at last come face to face with the greatest challenge of his life.

(Full-length Drama)