OMAHA, NE – Great Plains Theatre Commons (GPTC) has selected 10 playwrights to participate in the 19th annual conference’s 2024 PlayLab program. Hosted by Metropolitan Community College, this year’s convening will take place Sunday, May 26 – Saturday, June 1. The selected playwrights were chosen from a pool of more than 600 anonymous submissions. Each of the playwrights will work on their projects with a creative team, including a director, designer, dramaturg and cast composed of local and national talent. The labs will culminate in a free staged reading, after which the playwrights will receive feedback from other top national playwrights, dramaturgs, designers, and public audiences. All public events at the conference are free and open to the public. This year’s selected playwrights and projects include:

Ian August, All the Emilies in All the Universes
Vinecia Coleman, Being Black Outside
Adrienne Dawes, Dupe
Kendra Ann Flournoy, Bambiland
Chloé Hung, Alien of Extraordinary Ability
*Alex Lubischer, Pivot
Melissa Maney, Oddsville
Kate Mickere, Vampire Panic!
Regan Moro, burn For You
Patrick Vermillion, Stand Your Ground
*denotes Nebraska native

The 2024 New Play Conference Selection Panel was composed of Martine Kei Green-Rogers, Ph.D., Jihye Kim and Samuel Yates, Ph.D.

Founded in 2006, GPTC offers community and artist development programs year-round, a full season of premiere productions, and brings national and local playwrights and theatre artists together to develop new works at the New Play Conference each spring. Current conference funders include National Endowment for the Arts, Nebraska Arts Council, Nebraska Cultural Endowment, and Mutual of Omaha. The mission of the Great Plains Theatre Commons is to strengthen community by supporting the creation and sharing of diverse new stories.