For the past five years, Theatre Kalamazoo (TK) has been providing a platform for local playwrights to develop and share new plays with the community. Theatre Kalamazoo has announced that the sixth annual Theatre Kalamazoo New Play Festival will be held February 5-6, 2016 at the Epic Theatre in downtown Kalamazoo. The free event will feature new plays by 9 local playwrights, performed and directed as staged readings by local actors and directors representing the member theatres of Theatre Kalamazoo.

Plays were submitted from across Kalamazoo County and were selected by a committee this past summer. Selected playwrights being featured in the festival are Kendra Ann Flournoy, Cara Beth Heath, Miranda Lopez, R.D. Rivers, Erin Shelton, Darcy Ann Sturges, Nick Thornton, and Austin Wines. This year, Theatre Kalamazoo commissioned a 10 minute play to be featured in the festival by area theatre professional Von Washington Sr. His new play will premier Friday night and will be featured again in the second day of the festival.

To launch the festival, Theatre Kalamazoo will collaborate once more with the WMU Gwen Frostic Reading Series to feature a new work by accomplished and published playwright, Adam Szymkowicz. A reception for the public will follow the reading of his play. He will also conduct a free workshop for local festival playwrights.

Due to the success of the event over the past five years and the recognition of the diversity and enormity of local playwriting talent, the New Play Festival has grown to include new work by Kalamazoo County playwrights, as well as that of WMU and Kalamazoo College student playwrights, and the Gwen Frostic Reading Series to provide a unique, free and useful platform for local playwrights to develop their work and further their writing skills. Steve Feffer (Professor of Playwriting at WMU) will conduct post-show conversations to assist the playwrights in further developing their work with input from the audience.

This is a free event. No reservations are necessary. All shows are at the Epic Theatre in downtown Kalamazoo. For more information check out  www.theatrekalamazoo.com.