Atlanta Shakespeare Company at The Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse Announce Winners of Muse of Fire

The Atlanta Shakespeare Company at The Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse have just announced the Winners of the 2025 Muse of Fire Playwriting Contest. Playwrights of the global majority from all around the world submitted full-length plays that reimagine Shakespeare’s themes and plots with this year’s festival theme: “Let Me Be That I Am, And Seek Not to Alter Me”

This year, The Muse of Fire Playwriting Festival invited writers to explore the theme of identity, self-acceptance, and the struggle against external pressures to change. 

The top three winning plays will be brought to life through staged readings, performed by Atlanta Creatives, at the Tavern.

The three winning scripts are:

1st place winner El Mercante by Maya Torres
Reading Saturday August 30 @ 7:30pm on the Main Stage

El Mercante is a new take on The Merchant of Venice that reimagines Shylock as Tio Sanchez, a Mexican immigrant and taqueria owner in a mostly white town. When one of his employees approaches him with the idea to start a food truck, Tio Sanchez feels forced to choose progress with the cost of assimilation. With his restaurant and his livelihood on the line, Tio Sanchez risks his reputation in pursuit of justice and self-preservation. Set in 2024 and 2025, El Mercante examines what ‘a pound of flesh’ and ‘the quality of mercy’ look like in modern America.

Torres is an Atlanta-based writer, producer, and filmmaker. Their 10-minute plays have been featured in Act For a Change at Windmill Arts and in ATL Original Works with PushPush Arts. El Mercante is their first full-length work. Offstage, Torres is a preschool educator and rescue dog mom.

2nd place winner Hurt People by LaDarrion Williams
Reading Saturday August 30 @ 2:30pm on the Main Stage

Thirty-year-old, Marcel Bennett, has come back home to Birmingham, Alabama, to unlearn the things that shaped him, which are deep-seated childhood issues that seep into his artistic endeavor. When Marcel catches up with his old high school friend, old feelings arise, and an emotional truth must be sacrificed for Marcel to move on and begin anew. In this coming-of-age story, this play takes on the art of Black masculinity, sexuality, and how true the saying ‘hurt people, hurt people’ is.

LaDarrion Williams, from Helena, Alabama, is a self-taught playwright, filmmaker, and author shaping Black fantasy. His plays—including Hurt People, Coco Queens, and Boulevard of Bold Dreams—have earned national recognition, while his debut novel, Blood at the Root, became an instant New York Times Bestseller. He crafts stories amplifying Black voices and imagination.

3rd place winner Painting in Public by Novid Parsi
Reading Friday August 29 @ 7:30pm in The Porpentine

Al and Betty are both reeling from loss when they find each other. But can Betty, a Black portrait artist, go on loving Al, a data worker of mixed Middle Eastern and White descent, when she learns he doesn’t always look like the man she loves? 

Novid Parsi's plays have been produced or developed by theaters across the U.S. He has been named a MacDowell Fellow, two-time winner of the Ashland New Plays Festival, and winner of the Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative. A son of Iranian immigrants, Novid and his husband live in St. Louis.

ABOUT THE MUSE OF FIRE BIPOC PLAYWRITING FESTIVAL