ORLANDO, Fla. — If you ask Roberta Emerson, there’s no better place for a burgeoning playwright to showcase their work than Orlando Shakes PlayFest.

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“Shakespeare himself was a new playwright,” said the acting Director of New Play Development. “I like to remind people of that. His plays didn’t come out of nowhere. So at Orlando Shakes, we are definitely committed to new work.”

PlayFest, Orlando Shakes’s annual playwriting festival, is an integral facet of this commitment. Over the course of the two-week event set to take place from October 24 through November 2, writers, theater professionals, and audiences come together to “connect and share ideas that promote thought-provoking stories.”

Five plays, painstakingly selected through what Emerson calls an “arduous process,” will be performed, after which audience members provide immediate feedback to aid the project’s development.

“This is in addition to the 20 hours we spend with the playwright developing their play,” said Emerson. “We bring playwrights from all over the world, and they get a unique opportunity to really workshop the play with professional actors and professional stage managers, and we give them the space to do that.”

It’s a method that’s led to widespread success of past productions, with PlayFest alum seeing their plays performed on stages all across the country, including Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Dallas, and even New York City.

“We make sure other theaters are aware of their development process and aware of the plays,” Emerson said, “and we do what we can to get [the productions] off their feet.”

For Emerson, the most important part of that development process is the audience participation.

“The audience is almost the most important character to a show,” she said. “Playwrights write and actors act, but it’s the audience that tells them if the story’s working, if it’s connecting, if [the writer’s] voice is getting across. If they’re writing a comedy, is it funny? If they’re writing a drama, are people resonating with it? Having that immediate feedback after the reading is invaluable.”

But this experience doesn’t just benefit the playwrights and actors. This unique offering is, in Emerson’s eyes, a chance to “truly understand” how much work goes into the development of a theatrical piece.

“Audience members get to have that journey of seeing a play in its early stages, as compared to when they get to see it onstage and it’s a full production,” Emerson said. “[They get to see] how much it has changed and what are all the differences, and what that playwright’s journey was to get that play on the stage.”

The productions selected for this year’s festival were five of nearly 200 to 250 submissions, handpicked after a process that saw several readings and board member discussions.

Week 1 will feature readings of Phanesia Pharell’s Dead Girls Quinceañera, Stephen Brown’s Dunk City, and Marcus Scott’s Tumbleweed, while Week 2 will showcase The Sandwich Ministry by Miranda Rose Hall, and The Mallard by Vincent Delaney. It’s a wide variety of comedies, thrillers, dramas, and melodramas that perfectly encapsulate this year’s theme: “thought-provoking.”

“‘Thought-provoking’ is always kind of what we’re looking for but this year, we really leaned into that,” said Emerson. “What’s going to make you think about something in a way that’s different than what maybe is natural for us to think? All of these shows offer something that will hopefully make an audience member, no matter what side of the aisle they sit on regarding a particular topic, it will make them ask themselves: ‘is that what I really believe? Is this what I really think? I think every play this year will do that.”

The festival kicks off this Friday at 7pm with a reading of Dead Girls Quinceañera. Emerson encourages everyone, even those who might be hesitant to watch what could be seen as “just a reading,” to participate in this unique experience.

“Everybody who comes to it who’s new is like, ‘Why would I go and sit and watch a reading?’ But the ability to give feedback and be an active participant is something audiences don’t normally get to do,” she said. “[The audience] is literally actively helping create what that play ultimately becomes. So, what could you lose from that experience? There’s nothing to lose. There’s everything to gain.”

And to Emerson, one of the main things any participant of PlayFest can gain is a “sense of hope.”

“It’s always an interesting time to be in theater,” she said. “And yet, it’s always survived. I have to have some hope in that, especially what with everything that’s going on in the world. The only thing we can do is create art because while every part of the world looks like it’s trying to destroy itself, it’s the art that has saved us. Art is the only thing that leaves you with hope, with a bit of joy, with something to think about. What we do is important. It’s good to remember that.”

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