UVA DRAMA TO PRESENT ANNUAL NEW WORKS FESTIVAL FEATURING FIVE
ORIGINAL PLAYS WRITTEN, DIRECTED, DESIGNED, AND PERFORMED BY STUDENTS
FEBRURARY 15-17 AND 22-24, 2024, AT 8PM IN THE HELMS THEATRE
The UVA Department of Drama will continue its 2023-2024 season with its annual New Works Festival, an evening of short plays written, directed, designed, and performed by students. The New Works Festival will be presented from February 15-17 and 22-24 at 8pm in the Helms Theatre.
In a process overseen by Dave Dalton, Associate Professor of Acting and Directing; and Doug Grissom, Associate Professor of Playwriting, the students travel the entire road from concept to page to stage to present this collection of works that range from drama to farce and cover ground from matters of the head and heart to workplace woes and more.
The plays will include:
Café of Babel, by Ava MacBlane – A couple meets for a cup of tea – one of them is sure a proposal is imminent, and the other... just wants to get back to work.
I Hate My Sister, by Maggie Polistina – Two sisters are upset about the imminent marriage of their older sister, and struggle to understand why.
Karens, by Abby Milne – Classism, Buddhism, and a shocking secret derail the first-ever Zoom meeting of a private school PTA.
Running Out of Time, by Mary Hall – Celeste and Jacob navigate the complexities of a breakup. Through their first interaction since they initially split, they explore exactly how much their emotions can impact their relationship with each other, as well as their relationship with themselves.
The Sapphire Hyacinth, by Becca Davis -- Hollowed out books, bad poetry, sexual intrigue, and robbery – a typical day in Regency Era England.
Faculty mentors Dave Dalton and Doug Grissom have been working with the students since the beginning of the semester. The pair split their areas of expertise, with Grissom helping mostly on the playwriting side, working closely with students on the writing and revision processes, while Dalton focuses more on production. “I think the most rewarding thing is that we have encountered many of these students in our classes but seeing them produce something in this context often brings out a level of creativity we might not have seen from them before” said Dalton.
The students get to experience the entire creative cycle, working together from casting through performance and learning about the intricacies of the collaborative process in real time. Doug Grissom explained, “As writers, playwrights are unique in that, unlike prose writers, their work is not really ‘on the page.’ The playwright’s text is the ground plan; the actual play doesn’t exist until realized in production, and the only way young playwrights can grow and develop is to collaboratively work with directors, actors, designers, and technicians, and to actually see their work come alive onstage.”
Similarly, the student directors, actors, and designers have the relatively rare opportunity of working directly with the playwright. This collaboration facilitates deeper exploration of the material and how best to embody and showcase the material and their own work to bring it to the stage.
Tickets for The UVA Drama New Works Festival are sold through the UVA Arts Box Office and are available online at www.artsboxoffice.virginia.edu, by phone at 434-924-3376, or in person at the UVA Arts Box office located in the lobby of the Drama Building. Hours of operation are noon to 5PM, Tuesday through Friday. Parking for UVA Drama performances is available at the Culbreth Road Parking Garage, conveniently located alongside the theaters.
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For more information on the 2023-2024 UVA Drama season, visit our Current Season page.