Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival
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The Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival develops and champions vibrant new work that primarily features characters between the ages of 15 and 30.
The Festival works to provide significant opportunities for college-aged actors and to incubate new American plays for both conservatory and professional stages.
The Festival accepts full-length plays and short play submissions each year from playwrights nationwide, and selects five full-length plays and ten short plays to develop at the week-long event in the beautiful River Campus at Southeast Missouri State University.
SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN! The portal remains open until October 15, 2025, or until we receive 400 full-length plays; whichever comes first.
Submission PORTAL AND GUIDELINES
If you have any questions or submission issues, please email Co-Artistic Director Tim Nicolai at tnicolai@semo.edu.
Past playwrights include Obie-winners and graduates of esteemed programs such as Yale, NYU, Carnegie Mellon, UCLA, The Juilliard School, The Actors Studio, Columbia, USC, and the Iowa Writers Workshop.
The 2026 Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival will be held in person at the Dobbins Conservatory of Theatre and Dance on the River Campus of Southeast Missouri State University from May 17 to May 23, 2026.
The Festival will feature staged readings of five Official Selection full-length plays and ten Official Selection short plays.
The Festival also features a significant conference component, with seasoned professionals leading workshops and masterclasses for student and early-career actors, writers, directors, and designers. Past speakers have included Molly Smith, artistic director of the Tony-winning Arena Stage; Robert Barry Fleming, executive artistic director of the Tony-winning Actors Theatre of Louisville; Hana S. Sharif, artistic director of the Tony-winning St. Louis Repertory Theatre; Lonny Price, multiple Emmy-winner and Tony-nominee director/actor; and many more.
After the festival, one full-length play will be selected for the festival’s top prize. It will receive its world premiere in the 2026-2027 Dobbins Conservatory Mainstage Season. It will be considered for publication by Concord Theatricals, the world’s most significant theatrical publishing company, comprising the catalogs of R&H Theatricals, Samuel French, Tams-Witmark, and The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection. Members of Concord assist the Festival as both play readers and on the Selection Committee for the Festival's Full-Length Prize.
2025 Full Length Play Official Selections
Squishy Emotional Insides by Mehrnaz Tiv
Monday, May 26, 2025 / It’s 2018 in Western Pennsylvania, home of the Ruby Valley High School Jaguars Marching Band. The seniors, victims of an elementary school shooting in 2006, prepare for their final Labor Day parade performance and next steps out of high school through their post-traumatic eyes. In this group dromedy, Clarinet, Flute, Percussion, French Horn, and Trombone navigate band kid geekdom, queerness, trauma, and American gun violence through comedy and teenage angst.
The Hanging Girl by Aleks Merilo
Tuesday, May 27, 2025 / Newly expelled and seemingly futureless, Sonny and his friends engage in a final night of revelry that will end with one going missing. Eighteen years earlier, Sonny's parents were involved in a crime that would never be reported. These two stories collide in the present day in the play The Hanging Girl.
Six Inches Above the Knee by Sally Seitz
Wednesday, May 28, 2025 / Okay, so, here’s the thing…there’s only one student speaker spot at The Harpeth Valley School for Girls' 2013 graduation ceremony. And it will be absolutely over Mary Elizabeth, Mary Alice, Mary Louise, and M.KAT’s DEAD BODIES that they miss the chance to tell the whole school what Coach Mag did to their best friend Mary Morgan. It’s about time everyone heard her side of the story. Revenge is best served in a kilt!!!
Tracks by John P. Bray
Thursday, May 29, 2025 / It's 1998. A group of pill-popping teens attempt a letter-writing campaign to save their sacred spot near some train tracks, which is about to be closed off in the name of progress. Mythological figures look on, unseen, as the teens attempt to create a disruption by any means necessary. Tracks remind us that we all become mythological characters to those who wonder what life must be like under a Catskill Moon.
Hockey Wives by Tanya O’Debra
Friday, May 30, 2025 / The real action in the last game of the 1995-96 North Quincy High School Hockey season isn’t on the ice with the players—it’s in the stands with their girlfriends. A seemingly frivolous night amongst friends ultimately becomes a battleground where far-reaching social consequences are threatened at every turn.
2025 Official Selection Short Plays
Getting Rid of Ferdinand (the mouse play) by Sierra Blanco
Jar of Lightning by Steve Apostolina
Worth a Try by Trent Clifford
Strangers Off a Train by Samara Siskind
Miss Julie by A.M. Palson
Outfielders by Lani Kording
But Soft by Vince Gatton
Cartwheels by Jason Rainey
Two Summer Evenings by Jeff Carter
First Time by Dana Schwartz
2025 Full-Length Finalists
-in-chief by Ally Duvak
1st Degree by Garry Michael Kluger
Another Reason Not to Go by Jessica Marie Fisher
Big Money by Lauren Ferebee
bloody noses by Malinda Corley Schulman
By The Time We Got to Woodstock John Spellos
Deconstruction by Tom Smith
Driving Us Forward by Walter Dodd
Gore is for Girls by Leo Laya Díaz
Haters Gonna Hate by Justin Borak
I Was Unbecoming Then by Lyndsey Bourne
Lockdown Girls by Bella Anaya Hathorne
Mask Play by John Morogiello
Night Class by Sally Domet
Pageant Play by Jen Diamond
Price Watch by Barbara Pease Webber
Protect the Protectors by Elena Freck
Reps by Matthew Chong
slowburn by Rosemary Pearl Moore
Somebody Told Me There's a Monster in the Lake by D.A. Mindell
SPIDER by Madeleine Adriance
The Beholden by Gillian Britt
The Ella Elliott Fan Club of Southeast Wisconsin by Lauren Wimmer
The German Party by Bess Frankel
The In-Betweens by Blake Hackler
The Outliers by Kemari Bryant
The Projectionist by August Nigro
The Third March, or Beth by Dawn Branch
The Would-Be Lovers App by Maripat Allen
Throuples Counseling by Lily Boulard
Tug on the Line by Dana Hall
Victorian Psychedelic Sleepover Play by Mak Shealy
Waiting by Donna Kaz
Warmth in The Place of Ice and Snow by Joshua W. Brewer
We the People of These Fifty Acre Woods by Andrew Michael Reeid
WHERE??? By Mark Eisman
Winter People by Laura Neill
Festival Sponsors
Southeast Missouri State University Office of Residential Life
Century Casino Cape Girardeau
Beacon 53 Restaurant
Port Cape Girardeau Restaurant & Lounge
Scooters Coffee
Festival Staff
| Position | Staff Member |
| Co-Artistic Directors | Charles Goforth and Tim Nicolai |
| Executive Director | Kenneth L. Stilson |
| Managing Director | Lisa Fischel |
| Associate Artistic Director | Evelyn Bunce |
| Associate Executive Director | Abbie Van Pelt |
Cape Girardeau, MO 63701