Fifth Annual New Play Contest Fundraiser

DoFor the last five years, Theatre Conspiracy has held a new play contest fundraiser. It starts with a reception at 7 p.m. that features food, wine and drink. Then at 8 p.m., there will be selected readings from the top three contest entries. Following the readings, Producing Artistic Director Bill Taylor will conduct a talk-back, after which the audience chooses a winner. The winning entry is then produced and performed later in the season. Tickets to the fundraiser are $50 and include a voucher good for one ticket to any Theatre Conspiracy performance.

Following is information about this year’s Theatre Conspiracy New Play Contest Fundraiser.

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Third Theatre Conspiracy New Play Contest finalist is Mark Milo Kessler’s ‘Tribunal’ (10-30-15)

Theatre Conspiracy has announced the top three entries for its annual new play contest. One of the finalists is Tribunal by Mark Milo Kessler.

Mark Milo Kessler studied acting with Stella Adler in New York and worked in off-off-off Broadway projects. That was when he started writing. He returned to his hometown in Ohio and worked from factory floors to executive board rooms. He completed an undergraduate degree in Theatre from Youngstown State University. He continued to act on stage, in television and radio commercials, industrial videos and also continued to write, becoming a finalist in several prestigious competitions. He was accepted into the graduate playwriting program at Carnegie Mellon University, where he earned an M.F.A. He then moved to Los Angeles. After several years in L.A., he accepted a full-time position at a two year college in southern Ohio, where he is now an Associate Professor of English and Literature.

The Theatre Conspiracy October 30 New Play Fundraiser consists of a 7 p.m. preshow reception featuring food, wine and drink. Then at 8 p.m., there will be selected readings from Donna Hoke’s Brilliant Works of Art, Mark Milo Kessler’s Tribunal and Arlene Hutton’s Vacuum. After the readings, there will be a talk-back with Producing Artistic Director Bill Taylor and then the audience will choose a winner.

Tickets to the fundraiser are $50 and include a voucher good for one ticket to any Theatre Conspiracy performance.

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Arlene Hutton’s ‘Vacuum’ is Theatre Conspiracy New Play Contest finalist (10-29-15)

Theatre Conspiracy has announced the top three entries for its annual new play contest. One of the finalists is Vacuum by Arlene Hutton.

Arlene Hutton is a member of New Dramatists and a MacDowell Colony fellow. She is the author of Last Train to Nibroc (2000 New York Drama League Best Play nomination) and the Shaker drama As It Is In Heaven, both of which were selected for Smith & Kraus Best Women Playwrights anthologies. A four-time Heideman Award finalist and a three-time Samuel French Short Play Festival winner, her New York credits include 78th Street Theatre Lab, The Barrow Group, Circle-in-the-Square Downtown, Alice’s Fourth Floor, Ensemble Studio Theatre, HERE, and Vital Theatre.

The Theatre Conspiracy October 30 New Play Fundraiser consists of a 7 p.m. preshow reception featuring food, wine and drink. Then at 8 p.m., there will be selected readings from Donna Hoke’s Brilliant Works of Art, Mark Milo Kessler’s Tribunal and Arlene Hutton’s Vacuum. After the readings, there will be a talk-back with Producing Artistic Director Bill Taylor and then the audience will choose a winner.

Tickets to the fundraiser are $50 and include a voucher good for one ticket to any Theatre Conspiracy performance.

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Donna Hoke’s ‘Brilliant Works of Art’ finalist in Theatre Conspiracy New Play Contest (10-28-15)

Theatre Conspiracy has announced the top three entries for its annual new play contest. One of the finalists is Brilliant Works of Art by Donna Hoke.

Donna Hoke is an award-winning Buffalo-based playwright whose work has been commissioned, produced, and/or developed in 34 states and on 5 continents (and counting). She makes her artistic home as an ensemble playwright at Road Less Traveled Productions, where the premiere of her first full-length production, The Couple Next Door, was the theater’s top-grossing world premiere and the sixth highest grossing play in the theater’s history.

Hoke is also author of the full-length plays Cockeyed Today, Lost at Sea, Seeds (winner of the 2013 Emanuel Fried Award for Outstanding New Play), Flowers in the Desert (finalist for the inaugural American Association of Community Theaters contest), Safe (winner of the 2014 Todd McNerney and Naatak National Playwriting Contests, 2015 Great Gay Play and Musical, 2014 Bay Area Playwrights Festival semi-finalist), Christmas 2.0 (Hormel Festival of New Works, 2015), On the Roof, The Way It is, Open and Shut, Meet Me at the Gates, Marcus James as well as more than two dozen short plays.

Brilliant Works of Art is the winner of the 2015 Firehouse Festival of New American Plays, winner of the 2015 Last Frontier Theatre Conference, an HRC Showcase Theatre winner, top ten finisher in the Woodward/Newman Drama Contest, semi-finalist for Playwrights First, top three finalist for Rising Sage Visiting Playwrights and fifth place finisher in TADA! Contest.

Hoke is a member of the International Center for Women Playwrights, Chicago Dramatists, and the Dramatists Guild. She also serves as the Western New York representative for the Dramatists Guild, which allows her to foster the playwright community in her home region.

The Theatre Conspiracy October 30 New Play Fundraiser consists of a 7 p.m. preshow reception featuring food, wine and drink. Then at 8 p.m., there will be selected readings from Donna Hoke’s Brilliant Works of Art, Mark Milo Kessler’s Tribunal and Arlene Hutton’s Vacuum. After the readings, there will be a talk-back with Producing Artistic Director Bill Taylor and then the audience will choose a winner.

Tickets to the fundraiser are $50 and include a voucher good for one ticket to any Theatre Conspiracy performance.

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Theatre Conspiracy announces top three entries for annual new play contest (10-27-15)

Theatre Conspiracy has announced the top three entries for its annual new play contest. Excerpts from the three plays will be read at its fifth annual New Play Contest Fundraiser on October 30. The reception for the event starts at 7 p.m., with readings beginning at 8 inside the Foulds Theatre at the Lee County Alliance for the Arts.

Theatre Conspiracy received over 600 entries from across the United States, Canada, France and England . The top three plays are:

BRILLIANT WORKS OF ART by Donna Hoke, New York.

This play is the winner of the 2015 Firehouse Festival of New American Plays, an HRC Showcase Theatre winner, top ten finisher in the Woodward/Newman Drama Contest, semi-finalist for Playwrights First, fifth place finisher in TADA! contest, top three finalist for Rising Sage Visiting Playwrights, and was invited to the Last Frontier Theater Conference.

Brilliant Works of Art weaves taunt and often lyrical dialogue with a provocative story revolving around a romantic triangle among a law student, her struggling artist boyfriend, and an older and highly successful investment banker. The play contemplates the accommodations we are willing and unwilling to make when it comes to love, art, and money.

TRIBUNAL by Mark Milo Kessler, Ohio

In postwar Nuremberg, while her former leaders are put on trial, fanatic Nazi Hannelore Schneider struggles to keep herself and her mother alive until they can make a getaway to South America. As they battle starvation, ruin, the harsh winter and the fury and contempt of the Allies, she encounters a translator for the trial who helps them with food and other supplies. When she slowly learns his secret, she is forced to confront the catastrophic consequences of her blind obedience to ideology. What do you do when you find out that everything you believed in was not just a lie, but a stupid one; not just a stupid one, but one that led you to become, literally, one of the worst human beings who ever lived?

VACUUM by Arlene Hutton

Which is more important? Preserving the world economy or eradicating a fatal disease? At an exclusive desert resort, an idealistic scientist squares off against a billionaire-industrialist in this daring new drama full of deception, sexual intrigue and corporate power-plays. “You and I were going to change the world together.” “The world changed on its own.” These quotes come late in Arlene Hutton’s Vacuum and seem to perfectly define the plight that all of her characters face. Their lives have changed so quickly and they seem powerless to direct their course.

The Theatre Conspiracy October 30 New Play Fundraiser consists of a 7 p.m. preshow reception featuring food, wine and drink. Then at 8 p.m., there will be selected readings from Donna Hoke’s Brilliant Works of Art, Mark Milo Kessler’s Tribunal and Arlene Hutton’s Vacuum. After the readings, there will be a talk-back with Producing Artistic Director Bill Taylor and the audience will choose a winner.