Author Description

The Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival identifies and supports new plays that feature robust roles for college-aged actors, while providing a laboratory to train students in the skills and ethics inherent to work with living playwrights on new works. This collection features the five short plays that were Official Selections of the 2021 Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival--all written by playwrights based in Missouri (the home state of both the festival and its Pulitzer Prize-winning namesake). From the story of a twenty-something couple doing battle with their new Home Owners Association to a group of high school students coping with the death of a classmate to an action figure trying to save another toy from the tyranny of its child, the plays are funny, touching, and smart. They can be performed individually or make a wonderful evening of theater, all with robust and challenging roles for actors in their teens and twenties.