Urbanite Theatre puts spotlight on female playwrights in Modern Works Festival

Urbanite Theatre , which is focusing on new works during its 11th season, is jump-starting the process by trying out three new plays by emerging female playwrights during its four-day Modern Works Festival.

The theater has selected three new plays to be presented in staged readings during the four-day festival, which also includes a keynote address by Lauren Gunderson, who has become one of the most produced playwrights in the United States over the last decade.

In years past, the festival was held later in the season, but Producing Artistic Director Summer Wallace said that it became a production challenge “sandwiching that giant festival between two other shows.”

The three plays compete for a top prize of $3,200, and two plays from past festivals – Rosa Fernandez’s “A Skeptic and a Bruja” and Brenda Withers’ “Westminster” – were later given full productions at the theater.

This year’s festival features “A Nice Motherly Person” by Lia Romeo, “In the Mouth of the Beast” by Baylee Shlichtman and “I’m Saving You a Seat” by Sarah Elizabeth Grace. Each play will be given three readings and talkbacks to get audience feedback. Audience members also will be able to vote on which plays should win the prize.

Wallace said the festival is a good networking opportunity for the theater and the playwrights. “It supports, connects and spotlights female theater makers,” she said.

Urbanite Theatre's Modern Works Festival introduces new plays and writers

“A Nice Motherly Person” is described as a darkly comedic tale that contrasts the challenges of new motherhood with the pressure to be perfect. Wallace said the script is “laugh out loud” funny but shares a “painfully relatable journey that will strike a chord with anyone who’s ever felt overwhelmed by the societal roles they are demanded to play.”

Romeo is a recent graduate of the Juilliard playwriting program and has had developmental work at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, La Jolla Playhouse and The Lark. She also has had plays produced at numerous theaters across the country.

“In the Mouth of the Beast” is about a father and daughter carving team that enters a mysterious cave where the laws of physics and reality bend. Their task is to retrieve an object that may possess game-changing properties in clean energy research, but the cave puts them to a test.

The theater said Shlichtman writes “weird and magical plays about navigating relationships and autonomy.” She has had work read or developed at numerous theatres and serves on the board of the Orange County Playwrights Alliance.

“I’m Saving You a Seat” is about Sam, a woman trying to restart her life seven years into sobriety. She moves to a small town and reconnects with her ex-stepfather who is dating a much younger and newly sober woman who asks Sam to be her A.A. sponsor.

Grace is a New York City performer, producer and writer whose work focuses on “gender dynamics and imperfect people.” Her play “Dead Girls Club” was a finalist in the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival. She has had several plays produced off-Broadway.

Gunderson is best known nationally for the plays “I and You” and “The Book of Will.” Last year, A solo Repertory Theatre produced her play “Silent Sky,” about a group of female scientists at Harvard.

The festival begins with a kick-off party at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 4.

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“A Nice Motherly Person” will be presented at 2 p.m. Sept. 5, 8 p.m. Sept. 6 and 2 p.m. Sept. 7. “In the Mouth of the Beast” will be read at 5 p.m. Sept. 5, 6 and 7. “I’m Saving You a Seat” will be presented at 8 p.m. Sept. 5 and 2 p.m. Sept. 6 and 8.

Gunderson will give her talk at 8 p.m. Sept. 7 and an audience round table will close the festival at 5 p.m. Sept. 8.

Festival passes are $57 for all three new works and the opening party. Individual tickets are $21, $16 for those 40 and younger and $5 for students. Programs are at Urbanite Theatre, 1487 Second St., Sarasota. 941-321-1397; urbanitetheatre.com .

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Urbanite Theatre puts spotlight on female playwrights in Modern Works Festival