PRESENTED BY:
PlayFest 2026 will consist of six new play readings, including the commission of James Ijames’ Their Eyes Were Watching God. Presented over two weekends, October 30-November 1 & November 6-8, 2026. During each reading, patrons will experience groundbreaking new works while participating in the creative process by sharing their reactions directly with the playwright and creative team at a post-show talkback.
Supported by
Michael Dively
Additional Support by
Frank Santos & Corbett Compel
PLAYFEST PASS!
Can’t decide which show to see? The Playfest Pass allows you to see all six readings at a discounted price.
Playfest Pass: $85.80 | Single Ticket: $17*
JAMES IJAMES is a Pulitzer Prize winning and Tony Award nominated playwright, a director and educator.
James’ plays have been produced by Flashpoint Theater Company, Orbiter 3, Theatre Horizon, Wilma Theatre, Theatre Exile, Azuka Theatre (Philadelphia, PA), The National Black Theatre, JACK, The Public Theater (NYC), Hudson Valley Shakespeare Theater, Steppenwolf Theatre, Definition Theatre, Timeline Theater (Chicago IL) Shotgun Players (Berkeley, CA) and have received development with PlayPenn New Play Conference, The Lark, Playwright’s Horizon, Clubbed Thumb, Villanova Theater, Wilma Theater, Azuka Theatre and Victory Garden.
James is the 2011 F. Otto Haas Award for an Emerging Artist recipient, and two Barrymore Awards for Outstanding Direction of a Play for The Brothers Size with Simpatico Theatre Company and Gem of the Ocean with Arden Theatre. James is a 2015 Pew Fellow for Playwriting, the 2015 winner of the Terrance McNally New Play Award for WHITE, the 2015 Kesselring Honorable Mention Prize winner for ….Miz Martha, a 2017 recipient of the Whiting Award, a 2019 Kesselring Prize for Kill Move Paradise, a 2020 and 2022 Steinberg Prize, the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Drama recipient and a 2023 Tony nominee for Best Play for Fat Ham
James was a founding member of Orbiter 3, Philadelphia’s first playwright producing collective.
He received a B.A. in Drama from Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA and a M.F.A. in Acting from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. James an Associate Professor of Theatre at Columbia University where he serves as head of playwriting. He resides in South Philadelphia and the Morningside Heights neighborhood in New York, NY.
About Their Eyes Were Watching God
Orlando Shakes, in partnership with the University of Central Florida and Arden Theatre Company, have commissioned a new stage adaptation of Their Eyes Were Watching God by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright James Ijames.
First published in 1937, Zora Neale Hurston’s novel is widely regarded as a landmark work of American literature. The story follows Janie Crawford’s search for independence and identity through three defining relationships, set in Eatonville, Florida—the first incorporated all-Black municipality in the United States and a central influence on Hurston’s creative life. Ijames’ adaptation will bring Janie Crawford’s journey to the stage.
About the New Play Commission Program
The New Play Commission Program is a recently launched initiative by Orlando Shakes designed to nurture and develop new plays by prominent and emerging Playwrights in the American Theatre. Finding our generation’s next Shakespeare. The program aims to identify and support playwrights in creating original works, providing them with resources, guidance, and opportunities to bring their scripts to life.
TAMMY RYAN is a resident playwright of New Dramatists class of 2027. Her award winning plays have been performed at regional theaters across the United States and internationally. She is the inaugural recipient of the 2024 Leah Ryan Boost Award and was named a 2020 Haas Fellow for Take My Hand And Wave Goodbye (2025 Play Festival winner at Trustus Theatre) and nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize along with her plays Tar Beach and Molly’s Hammer. The Music Lesson won the AATE Distinguished New Play Award and has had over fifty productions nationally and in Canada. Tammy’s work has been supported by Playfest, NNPN, The New Harmony Project, Bogliasco Foundation, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hambidge Center, The MAP Fund, The Heinz Endowments and Pittsburgh Foundation. Her plays are available through Dramatists Play Service, Dramatic Publishing, Broadway Play Publishing and Playscripts.
About The Boy King In Queens
The Boy King In Queens centers around the transport of the “Treasures of Tutankhamun” exhibit into the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 1978. The story is told from the point of view of the working-class family’s patriarch, Ray, a Teamster truck driver responsible for moving the artifacts into the museum. After Ray peeks into the crate carrying the death mask of Tutankhamun his life seems to go off the rails. When his youngest daughter Kelly meets Joey Vero on his motorcycle, the “forces of chaos” are unleashed with implications for the entire family. Weaving in late 1970s New York City vibes and echoes of Egyptology, the Boy King In Queens explores themes of family, fate, love and the collisions between generations both contemporary and ancient.
Nicholas Pilapil is a Filipino American playwright. His plays include “God Will Do The Rest” (world premiere with Artists at Play & Latino Theater Company), “The Bottoming Process” (world premiere with IAMA Theatre Company, Victory Gardens Ignition Festival of New Plays), and “if all that You take from this is courage, then I’ve no regrets” (winner of the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival). His work has also been developed with Geffen Playhouse, Playwrights Foundation, Boston Court Pasadena, Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA, Theatre Rhinoceros, Playwrights’ Arena, and The Workshop Theater, among others. Nicholas is currently under commission with Playwrights’ Arena and is an alum of The Writers’ Room at the Geffen Playhouse, IAMA Theatre Company’s Emerging Playwrights Lab, and art Equity.
About Luca & Uri
Over the course of a decade, two men fall in and out of love beneath the moonlit skies of Los Angeles—holding tight through entangled sheets, quiet heartbreaks, and the ever-shifting shape of who they are. As time stretches and dreams pull them in different directions, they learn what happens when growing together starts to mean growing apart.
Alyssa Haddad-Chin (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based Lebanese American playwright, educator, and arts facilitator from Upstate, NY.
Her play, YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY, received the 2025 American Blues Theater Blue Ink Award for Playwriting and was selected to be a part of the Denver Center 2026 New Play Summit. She has developed work with New York Theatre Workshop, The Playwrights Realm, The Mercury Store, Clubbed Thumb, Keen Company, Premiere Stages at Kean, B Street Theatre, Capital Repertory Theatre, The People’s Theatre, and others. She is the Company and Community Manager at Target Margin Theater, a Resident Artist at Breaking & Entering Theater Collective, a New Georges Affiliated Artist, and a member of the Dramatists Guild. A collection of her short plays, And Now a Little Something for the Ladies (among others), is published with 1319 Press. MFA: NYU Tisch School of the Arts.
About The Ancestry Dot Com Play
Samia never knew her father, and her secretive Lebanese mother is more interested in watching Wheel of Fortune than providing answers. While she’s proud of her Arab American heritage, Samia wishes she knew more about her family history – until her friend does her DNA test without her consent, making Samia confront just how much knowledge about her ancestry she can handle.
Refuse It: A Black Woman’s Guide to 21st Century Rage
By Phanésia Pharel
WEEK TWO: Saturday November 7 at 7pm
Book Tickets
Phanésia Pharel is a Haitian-American playwright & screenwriter from a dragon fruit farm in Miami. She is the daughter of an immigrant teacher and farmer.
She will make her Off-Broadway debut at WP Theater with her play The Waterfall, running January 31–March 1, 2026.
She is the incoming Playwriting Fellow (2025-2027) at Emory University, where she will serve as a visiting professor and have a new play produced by their repertory company.
Her plays have been developed at the Eugene O’neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference, New Harmony Project, Playwrights’ Center, New York Stage and Film, SolFest, Thrown Stone, Shattered Globe, and Echo Theater Company.
She has received commissions from the Atlantic Theater, Lucille Lortel (Alcove), La Jolla Playhouse, Miranda Family Fund, Hero Theatre, City Theatre Miami, and the Latinx Playwrights Circle.
Phanésia is a member of the Obie-winning EST/Youngblood group and The Wish Collective. As a screenwriter, she is a member of Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad Screenwriting Lab.
Her honors include The Kilroys Web, five awards from the Kennedy Center, and an A is For Playwriting Award recipient.
She holds a B.A. in Urban Studies from Barnard College of Columbia University and an MFA in Playwriting from the University of California San Diego.
About REFUSE IT: A BLACK WOMAN’S GUIDE TO 21ST CENTURY RAGE
Refuse to Mammy. Refuse Shame. Refuse to Explain. REFUSE IT: A BLACK WOMAN’S GUIDE TO 21ST CENTURY RAGE explores the lives of Black women who reject the status quo. Through a kaleidoscope of vignettes, these women confront the costs and benefits of living radically under the persistent weight of the past. Darkly comedic and unapologetically defiant, REFUSE IT asks: If society has truly progressed and living conditions are undeniably better, why don’t we feel better?
TIRA PALMQUIST is known for plays that merge the personal, the political and the
poetic. Her most produced play, Two Degrees, premiered at the Denver Center, and
subsequently produced by Tesseract Theater in St. Louis and Prime Productions at the
Guthrie (among others), and is available to be licensed through TRW Plays. Tira’s newest play Tiny Edens was commissioned by Prime Productions in Minneapolis. Tiny Edens had its first public reading at the Park Square Theatre in St. Paul as part of Prime’s Prime Voices: The Playwright Series. Tira has taught writing at the Orange County School of the Arts, at Wesleyan University and at the University of California-Irvine. She is a member of the Playwrights Union (an inclusive group of writers working in theater, film and television that actively fosters growth for LA-based writers) and is a member of the Dramatists Guild.
About Tiny Edens
Plan for the worst. Expect the best. Find joy. Let go of regrets. Leave it better than you found it. TINY EDENS is a play about what it means to be prepared for death, while living the f**k out of every minute left.
About PlayFest
Orlando Shakes PlayFest is a two week long annual festival that provides a place for writers, theater professionals, and audiences to connect and share ideas that promote thought-provoking stories. Audiences experience staged readings of six new works over two weekends and participate in the development of new plays, conversing with playwrights, directors, and actors while absorbing groundbreaking new works.
Over the years, the festival has introduced over 182 new works to regional and nationwide audiences, including LaDarrion William’s Boulevard of Bold Dreams, Rachel Lynett’s Apologies to Lorraine Hansberry (You Too, August Wilson), Eliana Pipe’s Bite Me, Idris Goodwin’s What’s Best For The Children, Inda Craig-Galvan’s Welcome To Matteson!, Greg Lam’s Repossessed, Vincent Terrell Durham’s Polar Bears, Black Boys, and Prairie-Fringed Orchids, Deborah Brevoort’s My Lord, What a Night, Karen Zacarias’ Native Gardens, and Lauren Gunderson’s Ada and the Engine. Out of those readings, we have produced over 20 new plays in our mainstage season. Many PlayFest plays have also received productions in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Dallas, and Washington, D.C. Most PlayFest alumni have since been published, received critical acclaim, and awards for their work.
Orlando Shakes is a core member of the National New Play Network, a nationwide organization devoted to developing new work through the New Play Exchange, rolling world premieres, the Producer-in-Residence Program, and annual conferences. Orlando Shakes prides itself on active participation within the national new play community while engaging its local audiences in the latest and greatest in playwriting.