Back in 2010, Samuel D. Hunter was a young New York playwright fresh out of Moscow, Idaho, when Philadelphia gave him a life-changing opportunity.
Professional actors, sitting on folding chairs, using scripts propped on music stands, read his fledgling play start-to-stop to a Philly audience, which let him know, as Philly audiences would, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The play, workshopped at PlayPenn’s 2010 New Play Development Conference, swam upstream to become “The Whale,” in 2022, a prize-winning movie that grossed $57.6 million at the box office.
Could it happen again? Maybe.
That’s the thrill of PlayPenn’s New Play Development Conference. “Audiences love process,” said Che’Rae Adams, PlayPenn’s artistic director. From July 5 to July 20, audiences can attend free readings of seven plays in development and “be involved with something at the ground level that may turn into a Pulitzer or a Tony Award winner.”
Here’s what’s on tap: A play about motherhood and Miami, a World War II propaganda tale involving Black POWs captured by the Japanese, a story of three aging aerialists and another about an author confronting the woman who inspired her hit debut novel. A pet iguana figures in a political farce about an anti-empathy factory and another play is set in a dystopian food desert.
Also on the schedule is “Field of Flowers,” about painters Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh, written by Bee Kanofsky, a recent high school graduate entering the conference as part of a partnership with Philadelphia Young Playwrights. Her plays have already been performed in theaters.
“The audience will see actors sitting in front of music stands, reading words that may never have been spoken out loud before,” Adams said. There’ll be little in the way of lighting or other theatrical props, “because our focus is on the words.”
For the playwright, who often writes in seclusion, it’s a rare opportunity to hear the script’s words spoken by professional actors with professional directors and also to watch the audience and learn from its reactions and feedback.
“It’s a very intense process for a playwright,” Adams said.
“I find that our audience is extremely intelligent,” she said. “We ask them specific questions that will benefit the playwright. They’ll give feedback that is very interesting and intelligent and super helpful. For shy people, they can write down ideas and put them in a slot, if they are uncomfortable raising their hand and voicing their feedback. They can also email PlayPenn.”
Mostly, the readings take place in Center City at InterAct Theatre Company’s stages, converted from a former ballroom in the Drake apartment building.
This year, as PlayPenn celebrates its 20th anniversary, some of the readings will occur in neighborhoods – at an event space in the Esperanza Health Center in North Philadelphia and at the Painted Bride Art Center’s new location in West Philadelphia.
“We are focusing on expanding audiences and outreach to the communities,” Adams said. “We have to start sharing audiences because the arts are not doing well, not just because of the [Trump] administration and its cuts, but also because people can just sit home and watch Netflix. Trying to get people out can be difficult.”
Actors present three of the seven plays twice – once at the beginning of the conference, and the second toward the end. In between, the playwrights frantically work to polish and rewrite, taking into consideration the feedback they’ve heard. One interesting way to experience the conference is to see the same play at both presentations and notice the changes.
These three plays are culled from more than 200 submitted, each read four times before selection.
PlayPenn recruits the screening readers from everywhere, but particularly from its partner theater groups, including the Wilma Theater, Theatre in the X and Power Street Theatre. Other partners include the Philadelphia Theatre Company, InterAct and Philadelphia Young Playwrights.
To avoid implicit bias, Adams said, the first two sets of screening readers are matched demographically with the playwright, although readers don’t know the playwright’s name, gender or ethnic group.
Through scoring, those readers eliminate half of the submissions. Theater professionals – directors, actors, tech people – winnow it further to about a dozen. From there, the PlayPenn staff and experts on new play development choose the three they feel are most likely destined for future production in theaters.
Presented in partnership with Power Street Theatre is a play that weaves together the rhythms of Cuban culture, Miami and Santería with themes of motherhood and fertility. “Ama. Egg. Oyá.” by Lori Felipe-Barkin will be read at the Esperanza Health Center on July 12 and again at the InterAct’s Drake on July 18.
L.M. Feldman’s play about three aging aerialists, “hand foot hand,” will be read first at the Wilma Theater on July 12 and at InterAct’s Drake on July 19.
Theatre in the X is co-producing Andrew Saito’s play about a Japanese World War II propaganda effort that used captured Black POW soldiers to record radio plays aimed at contrasting Japan’s racial situation with racism in America. “Harlem Canary/Tokyo Crow” will be read at the Painted Bride Art Center on July 13 and at the Drake July 20.
Three more of the seven plays are basically the graduate works of The Foundry, a three-year program to nurture Philadelphia playwrights, developed as a partnership between PlayPenn and the Philadelphia Theatre Company.
“We want to be a real home for Philadelphia writers,” said Tyler Dobrowsky, Philadelphia Theatre Company’s co-artistic director.
The Foundry plays are “I’ll Eat You Whole,” by Chaz T. Martin, about the sparks that fly between an author and her inspiration; “Talking to Og,” a political farce by Zahra Patterson involving the anti-empathy factory; and “The Company,” Lex Thammavong’s take on community activism and puppetry.
What PlayPenn hopes is that one of the plays will replicate Hunter’s success with “The Whale.” Although “Fat Ham,” Philadelphia playwright James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play, was never workshopped at PlayPenn, three other plays of his were.
One of them, “The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington,” will be staged next season at the Wilma, where he served as co-artistic director. It has already been produced on stages around the country. Both Ijames and Hunter serve on PlayPenn’s advisory board and will hold workshops for theater professionals during the conference.
Here’s the schedule of plays and other events, including community workshops. InterAct Theatre Company at the Drake, 302 S. Hicks St., Phila., Esperanza Health Center, 4417 N. 6th St., Phila., Painted Bride Art Center, 5212 Market St., Phila., Wilma Theater, 265 S. Broad St., Phila.
