Gulfshore Playhouse Announces First Annual New Works Festival

Gulfshore Playhouse is proud to announce the success of its First Annual New Works Festival. Kicking off Gulfshore Playhouse's 2013-2014 season, the New Works Festival brought together a team of professional actors and directors to work on the three plays chosen following an open submission process that yielded over 80 entries. Over four days of rehearsals, the playwrights were given the opportunity to edit their plays before the week culminated in a staged reading for each play. The Second Annual New Works Festival is now set to take place in August 2014.

"I am humbled by the amount of community support we received with the New Works Festival. Developing New Works is an important step for Gulfshore Playhouse as we contribute to the cultural landscape of Naples and American theatre as a whole. I am thrilled to have been able to bring three excellent playwrights to Naples in such an intensive setting," states Kristen Coury, Founder and Producing Artistic Director of Gulfshore Playhouse.

The 2013 New Works Festival brought three very different plays all examining the modern American family to the Norris Center stage.

Point Last Seen by Scott Organ is the story of two friends facing the fact that one of them is about to be fired, which in turn has both men and their wives re-assessing their lives. Point Last Seen is a fascinating drama about paint swatches, fertility, sex, infidelity, and getting lost in the woods.

The Butcher by Gwydion Suilebhan tells the tale of two strangers: an Evangelist housewife from Virginia and an Iranian Butcher who witness a peculiar and shocking event. Together, they and their families try to make sense of these bewildering circumstances, questioning their relationship to their faith, their firmly-held beliefs, and the choices that their cultures have forced them to make.

Out of Orbit by Jennifer Maisel focuses on Sara, a single mother and a lead scientist for the Jet Propulsion Lab. Sara is seeing the culmination of years of work literally take off in the form of the Mars Rover Expedition just at the time when her teenage daughter needs her most, all while wearing a watch set to Mars time which puts her increasingly out of sync with her present reality. Out of Orbit is a dynamic play about this family's attempts to find themselves and each other in an increasingly disconnected and tenuous Universe.

Following the success of the inaugural New Works Festival, the Second Annual New Works Festival will take place in August of 2014. The submission process will open later this year.

Gulfshore Playhouse's 2013-2014 Season will continue with six diverse productions, including a World Premiere! Venus in Fur by David Ives, the sexiest, funniest, most acclaimed new play straight from Broadway, will open in early October. The season also includes: Something Intangible, Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol, the World Premiere drama The God Game by Suzanne Bradbeer in association with Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany, New York, Ken Ludwig's The Game's Afoot and the Arthur Miller classic All My Sons. Subscriptions and single tickets are available now.

Gulfshore Playhouse is passionately devoted to creating high-quality professional theatre at affordable prices and diverse educational opportunities for our region. Producing a full season of plays ranging from venerated classics and Broadway hits to contemporary plays and world premieres, Gulfshore Playhouse is committed to surpassing the standards of every valued patron while continuing to contribute to the vibrant arts and culture scene in Naples, Florida.

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