NEXT ACT! New Play Summit
The Next Act New Play Summit is a unique collaboration between Proctors and Capital Repertory Theatre, and a powerful engine for creating new works for the American stage.
Next Act which brings together writers, actors, and audience members in the creative process, is more than just a reading series. Across four days, new plays are test driven in a variety of ways, ranging from The First 15 (featuring the opening moments of a number of works) to Second Look (an opportunity to revisit a piece after further development) to staged walks through full-length dramas, comedies, and musicals.
Started in 2012, Next Act honors tradition at theREP, which has produced almost 30 world premieres since its inception in 1981. But it also harnesses the administrative power of Proctors—which had previously experimented with a presentation of Stageworks’ Play by Play and a Kevin McGuire-led New Play Festival—allowing both venues, which each host elements of the summit, to bring their own creative forces.
Each spring, committees made up of theatre professionals from across the region—including representatives from the Upstate Equity Actors’ Alliance—pore through close to 500 submitted scripts, winnowing down over successive rounds to the bright handful that make up the final roster. All scripts are read blind, and the final 20 are subject to rigorous real-world discussion, including aspects of future production, casting, and economic viability as well as artistic merit.
Every submission is read by at least three readers, who are seeing these texts without knowing who the author is or where they come from. Subscribers, patrons, and local theatre patrons weigh in at the event, with post-performance conversations over complimentary refreshments being a key part of the process.
The system works, and the true test of Next Act “winners” is the fact that they merit a full run during a following season at theREP.
Susan Bradbeer’s political potboiler “The God Game,” developed, after its initial reading, in association with Gulfshore Playhouse, was not only a success in downtown Albany, but went on to become a regional favorite published by Samuel French. Bradbeer’s “Naked Influence”—a searing portrait of a stripper trying to make a life in the same seedy Washington, D.C. milieu—was another triumph.
Other titles to make it to the MainStage at theREP binclude Sherry Kramer’s “How Water Behaves” and Bob Morris’ “Assisted Loving: Dating with My Dad.” The latter pair were both helmed by Broadway/West End director Gordon Greenberg, who began his career as an actor at theREP and has since become an important mainstay on Pearl Street as well as across the globe.
Steven Peterson’s “Paris Time,” which received a Second Look in 2014 was a part of the 2017-18 season.
And Pulitzer Prize winner William Kennedy also participated in Next Act in 2014 using the showcase as a workshop for a full reading—starring Aidan Quinn—of “The Light of The World,” which lays bare the curse of the Phelan family, whose members dominate the Albany cycle of his works.
Next Act is an expansion of Capital Repertory Theatre’s commitment to the development of new work and directly reflects the theatre’s mission, “to create meaningful theatre generated from an authentic link to the community.” At the same time, the weekend-long summit is designed to complement the Upper Hudson Valley’s rich diverse populations, and has been doing that for over 10 years.
Next Act New Play Summit was founded on the goal to find a play that theREP wants to produce – furthering the theatre’s commitment to the development of new work. To date, theREP has selected one play to produce as a premiere from every single Next Act New Play Summit.
The public is invited to attend and provide feedback during all events.
Officially formed in the fall of 2012, the Next Act New Play Summit is made possible by a generous legacy gift from Samson O.A. Ullmann – a professor of English at Union College (from 1957-92).
Among a variety of additional events are:
- theREP’s New Voices: Young Playwright Contest Reading, that features readings of six or more ten-minute plays by Capital Region playwrights aged 13-19.
- The NextGen Reading, an event that includes two or more short (15-30 minute plays) by writers aged 19-25. theREP works in collaboration with UAlbany and their Fresh Acts Festival for this event.
- The First 15: Be a Literary Manager, a popular event where the audience acts as literary manager to assess a submission using the same criteria theREP’s actual reading committee uses.
- A synopsis clinic, hosted by Dramatist Guild Member, Aoise Stratford. This clinic aims to provide playwrights with the most effective way to write a synopsis of their play so that literary managers, artistic directors, and agents want to read the play.
- Stage2Screen, an event curate with two Capital Region film companies: Poorductions and Frosted Lens. Stage2Screen shows how some plays progress – or have another life – by becoming screenplays.
The submission process for Capital Repertory Theatre’s Fourteenth Annual Next Act New Play Summit is closed. Check back for the next submission session in 2025.
Main Reading
“The Last American Newspaper” by Ken Tingley and directed by Marcus Kyd
Ken Tingley was editor of The Post-Star in Glens Falls, N.Y. from 1999 to 2020. During his tenure, the newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing in 2009, was recognized by the New York State Associated Press Association with its “Newspaper of Distinction” award nine times while winning more than a dozen national awards for its journalism.
During his tenure Tingley wrote an award-winning local news column that was regularly honored by the New York State News Publishers Association and the New York State Associated Press Association. When Tingley retired in July 2020, his column had been named a finalist by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists in 8 of the past 10 years. It was honored with a first-place award in 2016.
Since retiring, Tingley has published two collections of his newspaper columns – “The Last American Editor” – and “The Last American Editor, Vol. 2.”
His second book – “The Last American Newspaper” – is a memoir about the importance of newspapers in their community and all the great work The Post-Star contributed to the Glens Falls community. He adapted the book into a play in 2023.
He currently writes a Substack column – The Front Page – kentingley.substack.com – three times a week to help fill the void left by the lack of commentary in the Capital District.
Tingley grew up in Seymour, Conn. and graduated from Eastern Kentucky University in 1979. He married his late wife, Gillian, in 1982 and they have a 29-year-old son, Joseph, who currently works as an engagement specialist at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, La.
First 15 Reading
“The Judge and His Daughter”
Ruth Apolonia Zamoyta started writing plays at the ripe age of 49. Since then, her full-length plays and short comedies have had productions and readings off-Broadway and in regional theatres.
Her accolades include:
- Semi-Finalist – 2024 National Playwrights Conference (“The Widow”)
- Finalist – 2022 Austin Film Festival Pitch Competition (“Helene: Hitler’s Jewish Athlete”)
- Nominee – 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (“The Incels”)
- Winner – 2018-22 New Jersey State Arts Council playwriting fellowship (“The Caregivers”)
- Resident Playwright – 2020-21 NJ Play Lab (“The Incels”)
- Contributing Playwright – the 2021 Telly Award-winning Heroes & Villains Monologues (“Eleanor Roosevelt’s Pudding”)
- Semi-Finalist – 2019 Bay Area Playwrights Festival (“The Fencers”)
- Semi-Finalist – 2018 Bay Area Playwrights Festival (“The Caregivers”)
- Resident Playwright – 2018-19 INKubator program at Art House Productions in Jersey City (“The Incels”)
- Featured Playwright – 2018 New Jersey Writers Theatre’s Women Playwrights Series (“The Widow”)
Zamoyta has degrees from Columbia University, NYU, and St. John’s University, and is a member of Dramatists Guild, International Centre for Women Playwrights, HonorRoll!, and USA Fencing. She’s also a communications professional, published poet, and épée fencer. She considers herself from Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, as she spent every summer of my childhood there, then moved there year-round in high-school and graduated from Saranac Lake Central.
“Ancestry Dot Com Play”
Alyssa Haddad-Chin (she/her) is a Brooklyn-based Lebanese American playwright, educator, and arts facilitator from Upstate, NY. Her work has been developed at theaters and collectives across the country including New York Theatre Workshop, The Playwrights Realm, Keen Company, Premiere Stages at Kean, Mercury Store, B Street Theatre, Art House Productions, and others. She is the Company and Community Manager at Target Margin Theater, a Resident Artist at Breaking & Entering Theater Collective, a New Georges Affiliated Artist, and a member of the Dramatists Guild. A collection of her short plays, “And Now a Little Something for the Ladies (among others),” is published with 1319 Press. MFA: NYU Tisch School of the Arts, BA: The College of Saint Rose. alyssahaddad.com
“Mrs. Whitman’s Words for Women”
Shayne Kennedy’s play, “Agreed Upon Fictions,” premiered at 16th Street Theater in 2014. “Handled” premiered at Creighton University and was produced at The Wildwood Theatre in Minneapolis. Mrs. “Whitman’s Words for Women” was produced at Southeastern Louisiana University, had its second production at Creighton University and will have its first professional production this fall in Murphys, California. “The Patriarch,” was part of AboutFACE Theatre Company’s NEWvember festival in Dublin, Ireland, The Road Theatre Company’s Summer Playwrights Festival, and The Valley Players Theatre’s Summer Reading Series. Shayne works in accessibility for blind and low-vision people and has a popular TikTok account, or she did, depending on when you are reading this, @shaynegoestohighschool, wherein she reads her high school diary entries, thirty-five years to the day they were written.
“Good Vibes Only”
Jill Twiss is a comedy writer who won multiple Emmys, WGA Awards, and Peabody Awards for her work as a senior writer on “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” She is the author of “A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo,” a New York Times #1 bestseller, and several other children’s books. Her most recent book, “I Will Always Be Me” was written to help ALS patients describe their experiences with the disease, and when it’s read aloud it can be used to electronically bank patient’s voices. And in what may be her favorite jobs, Jill has written for the National High School Musical Theatre Awards (The Jimmy Awards) and the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Second Look Reading
“Castling” by Anthony T. Goss
Anthony T. Goss is a New York City-based Actor and Playwright from Boston, Massachusetts. He is a 2024-2026 playwright in residence with the National Black Theatre in New York. His play “Out of Bounds” was a 2023 semi-finalist with the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference. His play “Castling” was a finalist for the 2024 Premiere Stages New Play Series and theREP’s Next Act Play Summit, among others. As an actor, he was recently seen in August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson” at the Actor Shakespeare Project, “The Effect” at the Gamm Theatre and “Toni Stone’”at the Huntington Theatre. He is excited and honored to be working with theREP and further develop his play “Castling.”
Monday, March 31
Presented by the UAlbany Theatre Program and the Jarka and Grayce Burian Endowment in collaboration with the NYS Writers Institute
- New York State Writers Institute at UAlbany, 27th Annual Burian Lecture with Lynn Nottage. Free to attend 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 31 at University of Albany’s Studio Theatre, UAlbany Performing Arts Center (1400 Washington Ave. Albany, NY 12222)
Wednesday, April 2
7 p.m. MainStage Reading “The Last American Newspaper” by Ken Tingley. Directed by Marcus Kyd.
- Adapted from Tingley’s memoir and commissioned by Adirondack Theatre Festival with the support of the John E. Herlihy Literary Fellowship, this is story about Glens Falls itself! Revisit unforgettable moments, from the triumphant 2009 Pulitzer Prize win, to dramatic exposés about environmental disasters and the opioid epidemic. The feisty members of a small-town newsroom discover the power of the press to make a difference… and to change their own lives.
Saturday, April 5
1 p.m. First 15 Readings directed by Yvonne Perry
- “The Ancestry Dot Com Play” by Alyssa Haddad-Chin
Samia never knew her father, and her secretive Lebanese mother is more interested in watching Wheel of Fortune than providing answers. While she’s proud of her Arab American heritage, Samia wishes she knew more about her family history — until her friend does her DNA test without her consent, making Samia confront just how much knowledge about her ancestry she can handle, and how much her friends all really know one another. In the end, Samia opens her test, her results meant just for her. - “Mrs. Whitman’s Words for Women” by Shayne Kennedy
In the fall of 1918, three young women meet when they move into the recently built Martha Cook Building, one of the first female dormitories on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Grace is there to find a husband, Lillian, a professor’s daughter, is taking the place that was meant to be filled by her brother, and Ida, who arrives with trunks of clothing, has an unusual amount of street smarts for a young woman raised in wealth and culture. Against the backdrop of world war, a pandemic, and women’s fight for autonomy, these three navigate a system designed more to develop them into gracious wives and competent hostesses than successful career women. They begin to see and rebel and an effort to illegally distribute information about birth control to factory girls in Detroit, brings heartbreaking results none of them could have anticipated. - “The Judge and His Daughter” by Ruth Apolonia Zamoyta
The story of a fictional conservative Supreme Court Justice and his environmental-radicalist 16- year-old daughter. After his daughter is suspended for destroying her school’s air conditioning system with a sledgehammer, the Judge whisks her to a camp in the Adirondacks where they will attempt to live in the wilderness alone for three months, and they submit to the family psychologist’s rules designed to help them get along: He can’t talk about God or banish her to her room. She can’t blame him for everything and must relinquish her phone. Her reward is that she will get to go to public school rather than the all-girls Catholic school she despises. The plan begins to work: the two are starting to enjoy each other’s company, fishing, hunting, searching for an elusive moose, and discussing the Supreme Court docket. But, when his daughter discovers that her mother has been banished by the Judge for having an abortion, well, things take a turn. Will the Judge and his daughter find a way forward? - And featuring Jill Twiss’ “Good Vibes Only” – Emmy, WGA and Peaboy Award-winning comedy writer and author of “A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo,” a New York Times #1 bestseller, and several other children’s books.
The story of a (real!) nineteen year old Kansas girl named Madison Smith, who found a law from the 1800s that she could use prosecute her own rape.** Unfortunately, that law required Madi and her mom to get the signatures of two-percent of the voting population of her county – which meant that she spent countless hours in a strip mall parking lot describing her rape to a bunch of strangers. (Believe it or not, the play is a comedy.) Will Madi succeed? **This play has been written with the full permission of Madison Smith and her family.
Monday, April 7
7 p.m. Second Look MainStage Reading of “Castling” by Anthony T. Goss. Directed by Daniel Boisrond.
“Castling” was in the 2024 Summit’s First 15 Event and is getting a Second Look (full) reading this year. The play explores the lives of workers at a tire shop in Newark who incorporate chess into their morning routine. As their familiar workplace faces a business takeover, the employees must navigate the challenges that threaten their livelihoods.
Friday, May 30
5 p.m. Young Playwright Contest
Featuring readings of six or more ten-minute plays by Capital Region playwrights aged 13-19.
7 p.m. Wednesday, April 2 – “The Last American Newspaper” Adapted by Ken Tingley from his memoir
Directed by Marcus Kyd
Stage Managed by Sara Friedman*
Cast:
Mark Mahoney/Publisher Rick – Nicholas Baroudi*
Ken Tingley – Jeffrey Binder*
Mary Joseph/Woman on the Phone – Brenny Campbell*
Stage Directions/TV Announcers: Kathleen Carey
Don Lehman/Publisher Jim – David Girard*
Lydia Moore/Pam Brooks/Publisher Rona – Eliana Rowe*
Will Doolittle/Jack Cushing – Dennis Schebetta*
1 p.m. Saturday, April 5 – First 15 Readings
Directed by – Yvonne Perry
Stage Managed by – Madison Rivera
“Good Vibes Only” by Jill Twiss
Cast:
Everyone Else: Diaka Kaba Hill*
Stage Directions: Doug MacKechnie*
Madison’s Mom: Carmela Marner*
Madison: Nicole Zelka
“The Ancestry Dot Com Play” by Alyssa Haddad
Cast:
Amy: Gabi Bazinet Douglas
Stage Directions: Lancelot Douglas
Jasmine: Diaka Kaba Hill*
Samia: Hanadi Sadi*
“Mrs. Whitman’s Words for Women” by Shayne Kennedy
Cast:
Ida: Aaliyah AlFuhaid
Grace: Gabi Bazinet Douglas
Roy: Lancelot Douglas
Stage Directions: Carmela Marner*
Lillian: Nicole Zelka
“The Judge and His Daughter” by Ruth Apolonia Zamoyta
Cast:
Manda: Aaliyah-AlFuhaid
Judge: Doug MacKechnie*
Stage Directions: Hanadi Sadi*
7 p.m. Monday, April 7 – Second Look Reading of “Castling” by Anthony Goss
Directed by – Daniel Boisrond
Stage Managed by – KD McTeigue
Cast:
Stage Directions/Radio DJ – Gabriel Fabian
Mr. D – Hayes Fields
Byron – Michael Lake
Justin – Iniabasi Nelson
Hope – Angelique Powell
5 p.m. Friday, May 30 – Young Playwright Contest Reading
Directed by: Yvonne Perry
Stage Managed by Michaela Savoie
All cast lists are in alphabetical order
“Intervention” by Charlie and Lewis Hood (Guilderland High School)
Cast:
Jasmine: Aaliyah Al-Fuhaid
Stephen: Ethan Botwick*
Jon: Josh Demarco
Stage Directions: Raya Malcolm
Mary: Maddy Montgomery
Angie: Morgan Smith
“Mutiny: A Pirate’s Tale” by Alex Parmerter and Cormac Laster (Guilderland High School)
Cast:
Vane: Aaliyah Al-Fuhaid
Ronan: Ethan Botwick*
Bellamy: Josh DeMarco
Gulliver: Jared Lewis-Holliday
Blackbeard: Doug MacKechnie*
Stage Directions: Maddy Montgomery
Edward: Lucien Pryor
Chester: John Romeo*
Loretta: Morgan Smith
James: Brock Whaley
“Rodeo and Silhouette: A Rootin’ Tootin’ Romance” by Armand Caringi and Llyric O’Connor (Coxsackie-Athens High School)
Cast:
Rodeo Avenue: Ethan Botwick*
Ontario: Josh DeMarco
Heisenberg: Jared Lewis-Holliday
Billy Shakespeare: Doug MacKechnie*
Silhouette Pirouette: Raya Malcom
Viscount Pirouette: John Romeo*
Stage Directions: Morgan Smith
Asphalt Pirouette: Brock Whaley
“The Legend of Camp North Pine” by Samantha Millett and Violet Charniga (Coxsackie-Athens High School)
Cast:
Samara: Aaliyah Al-Fuhaid
Jack: Josh DeMarco
Michael: Jared Lewis-Holliday
Ash: Raya Malcolm
Tiffany: Maddy Montgomery
Stage Directions: John Romeo*
Jennifer: Morgan Smith
“The Spear of Emery” by Kara Whiteside and Emilyn Aldi (Guilderland High School)
Cast:
Nazmin: Aaliyah Al-Fuhaid
Assistant General Ernesto: Ethan Botwick*
Leading General Marcello: Josh DeMarco
Stage Directions: Jared Lewis-Holliday
King Maxwell: Doug MacKechnie*
Duchess Elaine: Raya Malcolm
Prince Theo: Brock Whaley
“Two Nights to Bordeaux” by Claire Hubert, Danielle Deering, and Payton Slater (Coxsackie-Athens High School)
Cast:
Guard: Ethan Botwick*
Alexander: Jared Lewis-Holliday
Random Man: Doug MacKechnie*
Stage Directions: Raya Malcolm
Joan: Maddy Montgomery
William: John Romeo*
Narrator: Morgan Smith
Henry: Brock Whaley
