Ashland New Plays Festival Announces 2025 Fall Festival Winners

The Ashland New Plays Festival (ANPF) has announced the four winning playwrights for its 2025 Fall Festival, selected from more than 350 script submissions. The winning plays will receive staged readings during the festival, running October 15–19, 2025 at Southern Oregon University’s Main Stage Theater.

The selected playwrights and plays are:

• Kamila Boga, In Case of Bruising

• Vince Gatton, Better

• Naya James Sonnad, Tipping Point

• Emma Watkins, Pretend It's Pretend

The four playwrights will travel to Ashland this fall to workshop their scripts in collaboration with professional artists and participate in audience talk-backs following each reading.

Kamila Boga’s In Case of Bruising is described as a lyrical exploration of childhood and the many faces of pain. Vince Gatton’s Better is a darkly comic drama examining resistance on both personal and systemic levels. Tipping Point by Naya James Sonnad explores climate and emotional shifts, asking what one life is worth. Emma Watkins’ Pretend It's Pretend reflects on childhood, play, and the lessons adults still need to learn.

The 2025 Host Playwrights will be E.M. Lewis, a two-time Steinberg Award recipient and 2008 ANPF winner, and Victor Lesniewski, a past two-time ANPF winner and O’Neill finalist. Both will lead post-show discussions and mentor the selected playwrights.

“The 2025 winners were chosen from an exceptional pool of submissions,” said ANPF Artistic Director Jackie Apodaca. “This year’s plays are united by a common perspective of empathy and compassion, blending the familiar with the existential in powerful ways.”

This year’s finalists include:

• The Alligator by Calley N. Anderson

• Oklahoma Samovar by Alice Eve Cohen

• Anonymous Skin by Cris Eli Blak

• The Many Mysterious Deaths of Jose Robles by Jack Karp

• Cancer is a Bitch by Kerr Lockhart

• Cicero’s Lisp by Richard Manley

• The Black Madonna by Steve Romagnoli

• Bone by Bone by Sharifa Yazmeen