Greenbrier Valley Theatre (GVT), the State Professional Theatre of West Virginia, is proud to present the 2018 New Voices Play Festival. The community festival stars local talent, and showcases eight ten-minute plays, and will run Feb. 1-3 at 7 p.m. with a Pay-What-You-Can preview performance on Jan. 31 at 7 p.m.

Tickets are $16 for general admission, $13 for seniors and $10 for children/students. For tickets or more information, call GVT’s Box Office at 304-645-3838 or visit www.gvtheatre.org.

For 10 years GVT has given local talent a chance to perform short plays by playwrights from all over the country. This year GVT combed through hundreds of submissions and found eight plays that will give the participants the courage to take the stage and shine.

“It’s been great fun to create brand-new pieces with our casts. We had several hundred submissions this year by incredible playwrights from around the globe,” said Teaching Artist Lukas Hagley, who is both directing and performing in this year’s festival. “What made us choose these particular plays was the depth assigned to these characters. They deal with love, death, divorce, family… it’s fascinating to see how they deal with these very real issues within the pieces.”

Playwright and director Brent Englar is from Baltimore, MD, where he works as an editor. His plays have been produced all over the United States, and he is a former Regional Representative (Baltimore) for the Dramatists Guild of America. His play, Wednesday’s Child, is the story of a long-married couple, and a surprise that drags up old arguments.

Eugenie Carabatsos holds a BA and an MFA in Dramatic Writing. Her plays have been produced in many different theatres, featured in festivals and development programs and won the Kennedy Center Harold and Mimi Steinberg National Student Playwriting Award and the Trustus Playwrights Contest, to name a few. Her short play, The Night Sky, tells the story of two mid-sized stars as they question their lives and the choices they have made.

Peter Snoad lives in Boston, but his plays have been produced both in the U.S. and internationally. His work has won him awards all across the country, and his most recent full-length play, The Draft, received two Best New Play nominations from New England Theater critics. His production, Notice, is about two strangers whose different understandings can change their lives.

Houston author and playwright Carl Williams’ plays have won numerous national awards and been produced throughout the United States, in Canada and Mexico. Many of his plays have been published in anthologies, and he is a member of The Dramatists Guild America, Texas Nonprofit Theatres and the American Association of Community Theatre. Reflections, his short play, is about two sisters who, in reflecting on the death of their mother, discover the greater worth of treasured possessions.

Marj O’Neill Butler is a published playwright, and proud member of Equity and SAG-AFTRA. She is also a member of the Dramatists Guild and the International Center for Women Playwrights. Her play, Being Ferried, is the story of one woman whose future is foretold on the ferry to New York City.

Nicholas Thurkettle is based in Southern California and his plays have been produced in Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Maryland and California. As an actor, writer and filmmaker he is a member of the Writers Guild of America and the Orange County Playwrights Alliance whose works has won him many awards. His play Breakfast for Quartet is about four strangers and the very different stories they have to tell.

A member of the Dramatists’ Guild, The New Play Exchange and a charter member of the Playwrights Group of Baltimore, Susan Middaugh’s work has been produced in 27 community theatres in the U.S., England and Canada. Her produced full length plays are Black Widows and A Modern Pas De Deux and two of her short plays have been published by Lazy Bee Scripts. In her play Meet Me in the Endive, a widow won’t admit she needs help until she gets a surprise visit from her late husband.

James T. Kitchens has owned a political consulting firm since 1983. He holds a B.S. in Drama, as well as an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Communications. His play, SLAMMED!, is about an old man who wants to take up a young man’s sport: wrestling.

The program is presented with financial assistance from the WV Division of Culture & History, and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the WV Commission on the Arts.