Pittsburgh New Works Festival 2016 Program C

Thread
by Evan Saunders
Pittsburgh, PA
Produced by The Summer Company

When a one night stand turns into something more, their relationship hangs by a thread. Will Isaac and Amanda be able to sort out their feelings, or will love just string them along?

Evan W. Saunders is a student at Duquesne University, where he has acted in and directed several plays with the school’s Red Masquers. This is his first time submitting to the Pittsburgh New Works Festival.

Your Princess is in Another Castle
by Whitney Rowland
Pittsburgh, PA
Produced by McKeesport Little Theater

Skip Whitaker is on a quest. After his Comic Con ticket is stolen, Skip performs for donations while dressed as Mario (from Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros). There, he meets Chuck, a foul-mouthed but enthusiastic Yoshi (Mario’s in-game sidekick) and the two join forces to get Skip into the Convention and meet his prophesied true love. But, when a weapon-wielding Pikachu and an angry Boba Fett show up, will Skip’s dreams of “Happily ever after” become “Game Over?”

Whitney Rowland is a playwright and screenwriter currently pursuing an MFA in Dramatic Writing at Carnegie Mellon University. Her plays have been produced at The Rochester Repertory Theatre, The Northfield Arts Guild, The Barn Players’ Theatre, the Lawrence Arts Center, and at several universities, community colleges, and high schools across the Midwest. She was twice commissioned by The Northwest Childrens’ Theatre & School in Portland, Oregon. Her work has also been presented at a number of conferences, including the Mid-America Theatre Conference, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, and at both the regional and national Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festivals, where she received a number of awards and honors; Six of her ten minute plays have competed at Regional Festivals as Finalists, with two of those works named as Regional Winners, and her play SUICIDE BY PUNCH BOWL was invited to compete at the National Festival in Washington DC. Her one act play LIGHTS FADE, CURTAIN was named “Best One Act Play” and was twice nominated for the John Cauble Short Play Award. She is also the recipient of two Kennedy Center “Certificates of Excellence” for her work in Playwriting. Whitney graduated with her Bachelors degree from the University of Kansas in 2009, where she was a three-time winner of the “Grant K. Goodman Playwriting Award.”

Key Ring
by Steven Peterson
Chicago, IL
Produced by The Duquesne University Red Masquers

Four keys hang on a key ring. They can talk, they can bicker, they can fall in love. But when the keys begin to be taken off the ring, how will love survive?

Steven Peterson is a Chicago-based playwright whose recent full-length productions include AFFLUENCE (Theatre 40. Los Angeles), THE INVASION OF SKOKIE (Chicago Dramatists), and the workshop production of LYDIA LINDSTROM (Raven Theatre). Recent one-act productions include SOMEPLACE WARM (Step Up Productions) and A COUPLE OF NOBODIES (The Artistic Home). His plays in development have been presented at the new play fests of Cleveland Play House, Utah Shakespeare Festival, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center Theatre, and Theatre Ariel (Philadelphia). He is a two-time winner of the Julie Harris Playwright Award and a winner of the Dorothy Silver Playwriting Competition. Steve is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists and is represented by the Robert A. Freedman Dramatic Agency in NYC.