MFA Playwriting Festival of New Works, May 12-13

Playwrights are architects of experience, drafting a blueprint on the page for what will later be a lived theatrical event. They create the words that people will say and instructions about how they might be said, but until people actually say them and an audience listens, the play is still just an idea. That's why it's essential for them to have the opportunity to hear and see their work embodied, and for the second year playwrights in Hunter's MFA program, they're having just that moment right now.

The MFA Playwriting Festival of New Works, which takes place in the Frederick Loewe Theatre, from April 25-27 and May 12-13, offers the playwrights  at the end of their training the chance to put their work in the hands of experienced actors, under the eye of some of the most prominent young directors in New York. These readings, which are free and open to the public, represent a next step in the artistic development of these writers.

Under the tutelage of writers Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a critical star and 2017 MacArthur "Genius" fellow, and Annie Baker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reinvigorator of hyper-naturalism, the playwrights in the Rita and Burton Goldberg MFA program spend two years of rigorous study learning about the fundamentals of theater craft and nurturing their own unique voices. Graduates of the program have recently gone on to prominent productions at New York theaters, as well as international venues like London's National Theatre.

Staged readings, where actors hold scripts and stage directions are read aloud, are a play's first moment of becoming itself. For these playwrights, who are about to graduate, this festival represents an arrival -- a celebration of what they have accomplished so far -- and also a beginning, as the blueprints of their imaginations, and professional lives, begin to take shape.

All readings are followed by a reception, which offers audience members the chance to meet and talk with the playwrights. Please visit http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/theatre/productions for more information about each of the playwrights as well as their individual plays.