Premiere Stages at Kean University Unveils Semi-Finalists for 2025 Play Festival

Premiere Stages has revealed the 2025 Premiere Play Festival Semi-Finalists. The Play Festival panel and literary staff reviewed 805 submissions, an increase of 45 submissions from the previous year, before choosing the 78 Semi-Finalists, representing an eclectic mix of plays, that explore a wide range of topics. 

“We were thrilled to read the work of over 800 playwrights,” stated Nick Gandiello, Premiere’s Managing Director who supervised the submission process “Our literary team and panel were honored to review each submission to choose these 78 Semi-Finalists. The selected plays showcase the vibrancy of American playwriting.”

From those 78 Semi-Finalists, four Finalists will be chosen for readings in June. The staged readings will be held June 19 through June 22 at the Bauer Boucher Theatre Center. One Finalist will be awarded a full production in Premiere Stages’ 2026 season.

In the twenty seasons since its founding, the Premiere Play Festival has received over 8,800 submissions and developed more than 100 plays. Multiple plays produced at Premiere have been honored by the American Theatre Critics Association, selected for agency representation, and/or been published by Theatrical Rights Worldwide, Concord Theatricals, Dramatists Play Service, Dramatic Publishing, Playscripts, and Broadway Play Publishing. A number of Play Festival winners and finalists have subsequently been produced in New York, internationally and at regional theatres across the country.

Premiere Stages is made possible in part through funding from W. John Bauer and Nancy Boucher, The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The Shubert Foundation, Carole Shaffer-Koros and Robert Koros and ExxonMobil Foundation, The Northfield Bank Foundation, Blue Foundry Charitable Foundation, Union County Savings Bank Charitable Foundation, The Hyde and Watson Foundation, The Union Foundation, E.J. Grassmann Trust, The New Jersey Theatre Alliance, The Union County HEART Grant and through the generous support of individual patrons and local organizations. Discover Jersey Arts is our marketing partner. Visit JerseyArts.com for more information about other arts programming happening around the Garden State.

Premiere Stages is committed to producing topical plays and interactive programs that reflect people of all ethnic and racial backgrounds, national origins, nationalities, ancestry, religious groups, gender expression or identities, sexual orientation, political beliefs, ages, abilities and disabilities.