Earendel Theatricals to Launch First Kentucky Emerging Playwrights Summer School

Earendel Theatricals has announced the first Kentucky Emerging Playwrights Summer School, to take place July 28th - August 2nd, 2026 at the Dwelling Place Monastery in Martin, Kentucky.

The Summer School will match a small cohort of eight student and early-career playwrights with professional mentors to revise a full-length play for professional submission and develop a personalized strategic plan for each writer's next career steps. Participants will also receive master classes on the craft and business of playwriting.

The 2026 Summer School faculty are two Kentucky playwrights:

Steve Moulds has been a Michener Center fellow, a Jerome Fellow, a National New Play Network Playwright in Residence, a Kentucky Arts Council Fellow, and a Writer in Residence at Vanderbilt University. Plays include The Body (Phoenix Theatre, Indianapolis); Emergency Prom; the Humana Festival anthology Oh, Gastronomy!; and The Wedding Guest (Actors Theatre of Louisville). He has also written five plays with his spouse, Diana Grisanti, including the immersive productions Untimely Ripp'd and Enter Ghost for Kentucky Shakespeare, and frequently writes commissions for Creede Rep and other TYA programs. He has also written commissions for The Appalachian Center for the Arts' Vitality Touring Theatre Company (Galaxy Girl) and Pikeville 200's bicentennial production Spirits of Pikeville Past (The Joy of Flight about John Paul Riddle). newplayexchange.org/users/661/steve-moulds

Jayme Kilburn is a playwright, director, and Assistant Professor of Theatre at Union Commonwealth University in Kentucky. Her original full-length plays Ding! Or Bye Bye Dad and Garbage Kids premiered at Venus Theatre, and her writing often explores themes of care, confinement, and resilience. Jayme also facilitates playwriting workshops for incarcerated writers through Voices Inside at Northpoint Training Facility and is committed to expanding access to storytelling in rural and justice-impacted communities. She is the Founding Artistic Director of the Strand Theater Company in Baltimore, dedicated to producing works by women playwrights, and has directed over forty productions across the country. Jayme holds a Ph.D. in Theatre Arts from Cornell University and an M.A. in Humanities and Social Thought from NYU. www.jayme-kilburn.com

The Summer School will take place at the Dwelling Place Monastery, a mountaintop retreat center of the Mt. Tabor Benedictines located in Floyd County near Martin, KY (mtabor.com). The program is an initiative of Earendel Theatricals, a Pikeville-based professional theatre company whose mission is to tell stories of hope, with a special focus on new and innovative theatrical works bridging the urban-rural divide. www.earendelonstage.com

"This will be our third playwriting retreat at the Dwelling Place, after hosting Erik Ehn's extraordinary Stillwright silent playwriting retreats in 2023 and 2024," says Earendel's president, Br. Christian Cole Matson. "We've found that the mountains of eastern Kentucky help writers settle into a place of quiet. We hope the Summer School will allow each writer to emerge from this beautiful environment with a clear sense of direction and a solid piece of work that displays their gifts to the world. We want more playwrights to find their place in the professional theatre."

Writers who have completed at least one draft of a full-length play are invited to apply by May 31st. Writers do not need to be affiliated with Kentucky, and there is no application fee. The final cohort will be selected by June 15th. For more information, including tuition costs, visit kysummerschool.eventbrite.com or contact Br. Christian Cole Matson at christian@earendelonstage.com.

Writers may apply via JotForm: https://www.jotform.com/form/260728438453160.

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