Firehouse Theatre Project Announces Festival of New American Plays Winners

Continuing its artistic mission of promoting new work in Contemporary Theatre, Firehouse Theatre Project presented its Tenth Annual Festival of New American Plays the weekend of June 28, and by the end of the weekend, the audience had selected the first place and runner up winners!

The culmination of Firehouse's playwriting contest, the Festival celebrates and encourages new and emerging American Playwrights, and allows the Greater Richmond community to have a say in the Festival's winner. Firehouse Theatre Project's Founding Artistic Director, Carol Piersol is "thrilled to have been an incubator of Festival plays that have gone on to full productions in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago."

Two finalists were culled from over 200 entries from across the country. The finalists were selected by community volunteers who spent over 500 hours reading the plays. The top eleven recommendations were then sent to a professional panel of judges who read, discussed, and selected their top two choices. Both selected plays received 2 readings executed and performed by a select group of professional Richmond directors and actors June 28 - July 1, 2012.

Taking home the $500 runner up prize:

• Jeffrey Wolf, Memories of Lost Time

  Memories of Lost Time takes place during a man's last night in prison after he is proven innocent and is going to be released.  The play explores whether a person can ever come back from living in prison and what it means when a person thought guilty of murder is suddenly innocent. 

Taking home the $1,000 first place prize:

• David Rush, Nureyev's Eyes

During the l970's the American painter Jamie Wyeth (son of Andrew) created a series of works about the dancer Rudolf Nureyev.  Nureyev's Eyes imagines what their encounters may have been like, how their relationship evolved, and how they changed each other. When Wyeth meets Nureyev at a party and decides to paint him, he first has to overcome the dancer's reluctance, and then has to deal with Nureyev's explosive personality.  David Rush is a second time winner of Firehouse's Festival of New American Plays, having won first place in 2007 with his play One Fine Day.