SEEKING BLACK BOX 2025 FESTIVAL SUBMISSIONS
Submit by APRIL 30, 2024
 

 
Black Box New Play Festival

January 25 – February 4, 2024

Thurs – Sat @ 7:30pm
Sun @ 3pm

Gallery has a history of supporting emerging playwrights, fostering play development, and producing world premieres. Now in its 27th year, our playwright-focused festival aims to polish and perfect a collection of new plays and offer a home where playwrights can deepen their stagecraft and hold a mirror up to our time.
 

Black Box New Play Festival

 

Week One: Jan. 25 – 28, 2024

  • The Constancy of Home
    Playwright, Jeff Carter
    Director, Brendan Clifford

    When a college student takes his girlfriend home to meet his parents, a sense of surreal confusion begins to set in almost immediately. Has the sameness of modern suburban life become so acute that no one knows precisely who’s who anymore?


    Photo by Steven Pisano Photography

     
  • The Trouble with Peaches
    Playwright, Johanna Beale Keller
    Director, Thomas Netter

    Ruth has finally met the man of her dreams, Samir, and brought him to meet her diverse family of beloved cousins at their annual beach vacation in Galveston, Texas. This is a fast-paced farce about love, diversity, and misunderstandings of family traditions.


    Photo by Steven Pisano Photography

     
  • When the Lilacs are in Bloom
    Playwright, Melanie Garber-Letitia
    Director, Laura Livingston

    When the Lilacs are in Bloom is a story about intergenerational trauma, finding healing where you can, and creating the life you want to lead regardless of how loud the naysayers can be – even if those naysayers are your own parents.


    Photo by Steven Pisano Photography

 

 

Week Two: Feb. 1 – 4, 2024

  • Curtain Call
    Playwright, Alan Brooks
    Director, Trent Dawson

    Awakening backstage with a play in progress, a man is horrified to find that everyone expects him to go out on stage and be the lead.


    Photo by Kat Vecchio

     
  • Ten Weeks
    Playwright, Rachel Leopold
    Director, Gabrielle Giacomo

    On the eve of Jo’s maternity leave, her colleagues at Lotus Creative gather to send her off with a surprise baby shower. As the women sip spiked seltzer and discuss the realities of working motherhood and the ways in which motherhood may or may not change them, the long-simmering competition between Jo and her protégé, Anna, is finally laid bare.


    Photo by Kat Vecchio

     
  • Secondhand Smoke
    Playwright, Constance Humphrey Egan
    Director, Dominic Cuskern

    A powerful attorney dying from cancer tries desperately to retain control and dignity, while the people around her attempt to be of assistance. Secondhand Smoke examines the multi-generational impact of the collateral damage people inflict when they try to control the people around them, even if the motivation for that control is well-intentioned.


    Photo by Kat Vecchio

 

 

Festival Staff

Co-Producers: Sue Glausen & Dominic Cuskern
Sound Designer: Patrick Moren
Lighting Designer: Lillian Hilmes
Production Stage Manager: Gavin Petersen
Assistant Stage Manager: Caty Morrison
 


 
All questions related to the Black Box New Play Festival should be sent to blackbox@galleryplayers.com
 

 

Black Box New Play Festival

“Words can’t express what I feel right now. What a special two nights I just had. Sitting with friends and strangers and watching 2 hours of my work in a theater full of love and support for my writing. This whole process has been not only fun but important because I learned so much from seeing OCEAN PLANET staged and realized. What a special memory. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for believing in me and producing this weekend of my plays.” – Brett Epstein, playwright