Ashland New Plays Festival Reveals Four Winning Plays for 2026 Fall Festival

Ashland New Plays Festival (ANPF) launches its annual Fall Festival through a unique system that brings together theatre lovers from Southern Oregon and beyond. Last December, 73 hardworking volunteers engaged in a reading process, during which 350 plays were read, re-read, and discussed—without authorship being revealed. After six months of debate, ANPF’s passionate readers designated 12 finalists and moved them forward to Artistic Director Jackie Apodaca, who chose the four winning plays.

ANPF looks forward to welcoming the four winning playwrights to Ashland this October for a week of play readings, development, and community. Dramatic readings of the winning plays will be presented at the Main Stage Theater of Southern Oregon University from October 14-18.

The winners are:

The Caelumids by DJ Hills

Synopsis: Blythe and Thora sit on Blythe's porch and talk about the future. Their grandsons, Eddie and Mitchell, stand in Blythe's yard and reminisce about the past. And in between them all is the scary, unpredictable present that keeps them rooted in place.

Netta and Ru by Lisa Langford

Synopsis: Montgomery, Alabama, 1955. Ruby, a hoodoo practitioner and sex worker, has been unable to access her magic since burying her mother a year ago. When her devout, socially ambitious play-sister Netta gets engaged, their bond is tested by more than faith versus folk tradition. A murder brings a mysterious stranger to town, and as the historic bus boycott ignites around them, Ruby and Netta find themselves caught between personal transformation and the urgency of the Civil Rights Movement.

persian girl play by Ida Esmaeili

Synopsis: In a small town outside of New York City, a tight-knit group of Iranian teenagers come together over the course of a spring semester to do normal teenage things: fall in love, read fortunes in cof ee, and complain about their “vay, vay, vay,” Persian parents. When a world-rocking series of events threaten to tear apart their lifelong friendship, they’re forced to confront the reality that growing up happens a lot faster than any of them were prepared for.

Threshold by Stephanie Fybel

Synopsis: Respected appellate judge and Holocaust scholar David Lewin nears the end of his life, slipping in a morphine haze between the present and ghostly visits from his parents in their younger forms, fleeing Nazi Germany and Lithuania in the late 1930s. As he’s drawn into the past, he confronts the work of his own lifetime: exposing how the German legal system enabled tyranny and asking what history demands of us today.

When announcing the winners to the assembled readers at an appreciation event on July 5, Apodaca shared, “All 12 finalists are wonderful and worthy new plays, making the decision of a final four almost impossible. Our winners share a focus on meaning: the meaning of life, friendship, love, and death.” Apodaca also thanked the ANPF readers, calling them the engine of the organization and true champions of new work in American theatre.

Fully acted and directed, the Fall Festival readings will be presented by professional actors and directors, including many Oregon Shakespeare Festival veterans and faces familiar to local audiences. ANPF is set to welcome back two past Host Playwrights. E.M. Lewis and Beth Kander will share talkback duties and will co-teach the annual playwriting workshop Saturday, October 17, 9:00 am - 12:00 pm.

Tickets for the festival and playwriting workshop are on sale now at ashlandnewplays.org. ANPF also congratulates this year’s finalists:

• Eve's Ale by Shanna Allman
• Foot Wears House by Laura Neill
• Nine Scenes for the Short Reign of Pope Urban VII by James Nevius
• Professional Learning by Amy Hanson
• The Quilted Heart by Andrew Lee Creech
• The Starters by Laura Winters
• Syran-0 by Emily McClain
• White Fox Blues by Steve Romagnoli

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