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Theatre Conspiracy announces the three finalists for the 2016-2017 New Play Contest: NOLI TIMERE (Don’t Be Afraid) by Jared Michael Delaney, Caesar’s Blood by Rich Rubin, and Highness by Carolyn Kras. Finalists were selected from over 600 entries across the United States, Canada, Israel, Thailand and England. The winner will be voted on by the audience and announced at Theatre Conspiracy’s Annual Fundraiser on Nov. 19.
The evening begins with at 7 p.m. with a reception including food and drink. Then at 8PM selections from each finalist will be read by a cast of Theatre Conspiracy favorites. After the conclusion of the final reading the audience will vote for which show they think should be the winner. The winning script will be given a full production in May of 2017.
The New Play Contest, now in its 18th year, provides opportunity for audiences to get involved with the contest process itself, rather than the end result.
“The theatre is a difficult business for everyone involved, but even more so for playwrights,” says Theatre Conspiracy Founder and Artistic Director Bill Taylor. “What happens after a world premiere? By producing new works, Theatre Conspiracy creates a more promising landscape for the future of theatre by providing a nurturing environment for the greatest asset theatre can have: great playwrights.”
NOLI TIMERE (Don’t Be Afraid) by Jared Michael Delaney tells the story of a newly-ordained priest and his sister are made to confront something from their past that neither is expecting when a strange man knocks on the door of the rectory late one night. A confrontation occurs that leads them both into a frightening world that may, in fact, just be our own.
Caesar’s Blood by Rich Rubin takes place in late November 1864. The Civil War is still raging, and President Abraham Lincoln has just been re-elected. At New York’s Winter Garden Theatre, the elite of Manhatten have gathered to watch a one-evening-only benefit performance of Julius Caesar starring the three most celebrated actors in America, the iconic Booth brothers – Edwin, Junius Brutus and John Wilkes. John, heralded in the tabloids as “the handsomest man in America,” is a fervent believer in the Confederate cause, and had already been arrested for his seditious comments about the President and the North. His older brothers Edwin and Junius Brutus, meanwhile, are ardent supporters of Lincoln and the Union. Both before and after the performance of Shakespeare’s bloody tragedy, the three brothers spar about politics, theater and the roots of their heated sibling rivalry. A play based, as the saying goes, on true events.
Highness by Carolyn Kras dramatizes Princess Elizabeth I and Queen Katherine Parr’s journey of friendship and betrayal while exploring challenges faced by women in politics. Before Elizabeth I became an iconic Queen, she was a troubled teenager meeting her fourth stepmother, Katherine Parr. Katherine becomes Elizabeth’s greatest mentor, but politics and personal betrayal threaten to tear them apart.
Tickets to Theatre Conspiracy’s Fundraiser are $50 and include the reception, readings and a voucher good for a ticket to any Theatre Conspiracy production.
