Winners of the 2024 Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival were named August 17, the conclusion of the week-long festival. The winners will all be published in the 49th edition of Concord Theatricals' Off Off Broadway Festival Plays series, and each made available for licensing via Concord's Samuel French imprint.
This year's winners were A Neo-Vagina Monologue by Aster Aguilar, Pilloried by Jillian Blevins, A Mercy At Midnight Castle by Phillip Gregory Burke, Data Queen by Adam Ashraf Elsayigh, Beethoven’s Third by Howard Ho, and A Definitive Ranking of My Closest Friends by Jay Stalder.
"The creativity, hard work and commitment of everyone involved in the 2024 OOB Festival made it a memorable experience for all,” say Festival Co-Artistic Directors Casey McLain and Garrett Anderson in a joint statement. “We want to thank the directors, actors, stage crew, Festival staff, and especially the playwrights for bringing such vibrant energy and inspiring work to the stage."
Judges for this year's competition included playwrights Liza Birkenmeier, Nathan A. Davis, Julia Izumi, Jiehae Park, Theresa Rebeck, and Madhuri Shekar, plus National New Play Network Executive Director Nan Barnett, City Theatre Miami Artistic Director Margaret Ledford, Page 73 Artistic Director Michael Walkup, Playwrights Realm Associate Artistic Director Alexis Williams, Fire This Time Festival Artistic Director Cezar Williams, and Dramatists Guild Co-Executive Director Emmanuel Wilson. Jen Silverman was this year's Honorary Festival Playwright. Poised to make their Broadway debut this season with The Roommate, Silverman is a 2009 OOB Festival winner.
That judging panel selected the winning works from 12 finalists, themselves chosen from 30 total works that performed at the festival. This year's festival received 850 submissions worldwide. Works were performed at the week-long festival August 13-17 at The Vineyard's Dimson Theatre.
Additional semi-finalists included The Issue by Jennifer Crittenden, stuffed by Claire Dettloff, Kaylee and Adelyn by Elizabeth Shannon Ellis, Yom Kippur Abortion by Shira Gorelick, Tourist Trap by Elijah Guo, Sanctuary by Alyssa Haddad-Chin, Happy Havens Church of Higher Enlightenment by Paris Herbert-Taylor, Figment of Manifestation by Christine Hoang, Runaway Girl by Mo Holmes, Blood and Coal Dust by Arthur M. Jolly, Vape Lord by Manning Jordan, fire / fight by Drayla Kasheen, Southies by Jeffrey James Keyes, Are You My Last Stop by T.J. L, Modelland by Aidan La Poche, Louisiana Shoal by Mildred Inez Lewis, Bad Horses by Martin Murray, Do You Party? by Megan Rivkin, Shoptalk by TyLie Shider, sundays in the park with clay & cher by SMJ, Brave People by Allan Staples, mudder by Rachel Tookey, MOLTING by Michael Towers, and Hutch by Charles White.
The annual festival, which was first held in 1975, aims to introduce the next wave of emerging playwrights. Previous winners have included Martyna Majok for Cost of Living and Audrey Cefaly for The Gulf.
Visit OOBFestival.com.
