2026 One-Act Play Festival

A Change of Heart

Is a second chance a lifeline when it doesn’t feel like your life anymore? A heart transplant patient with strange cravings and desires seems a stranger to her fiancé and herself. A story about the struggle for self-acceptance and moving forward with the hand we’re dealt.

Arianna Rose is an award-winning playwright, musical theatre writer, and educator, produced in thirty-seven states and twelve countries.  Awards: MAC Song of the Year, the York Theatre NEO.  Best play awards: Theatre Odyssey, Midnight Sun Theatre, 4th Street Theatre, Town & Gown Theatre, Tree City Playhouse, Mixing It Up Productions, the Know Theatre, Studio 1 Theatre, Third Citizen Theatre, South Baldwin Theatre, Savage Wonder Theatre, Clocktower Theatre, M.T. Pockets Theatre. Participant:  2022 Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive, 2022 William Inge Play Festival, 2019-2021 Miami-Dade Playwright Development Program. Two-time finalist, Edward Kleban Award for Lyricists & Librettists. Published by Applause Books, Smith & Kraus, Theatre Odyssey Publications, Ghostlight Publications. Instructor:  “Writing the Short-form Play,” “Wordcraft: Lyric Writing for the Stage.” MFA, NYU Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program; BA, Bucknell University; BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Writing Workshop. Member: ASCAP, LMDA, Maestra, New Play Exchange, South Florida Theatre League, The Dramatists Guild. www.ariannarose.net

Reasonable Doubt

As they wait to be selected for jury duty, Chuck and Barry discuss the state of the justice system and how the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth can be an illusion.

Philip Middleton Williams is an award-winning playwright with over seventy plays to his name, ranging from one-minute pieces to full-length productions. His plays have garnered numerous honors, including finalist spots in the City Theatre National Award for Short Playwriting, the American Association of Community Theatres New Play Fests, and the Utah Shakespeare Festival Words Cubed New Play Program. All Together Now won first place in the 2016 Playgroup playwriting contest and was produced during The Willow Theatre’s 2017-2018 season in Boca Raton, Florida. Can’t Live Without You marked his off-Broadway debut in 2008 and was later produced by The Playgroup for their 2018-2019 season. Seven of his works are published and licensed through Next Stage Press. Home-Style Cooking at the Gateway Cafe was featured in The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2022 by Smith & Kraus, and monologues from his plays have been included in The Best Men’s Monologues for 2019, The Best Men’s and Women’s Stage Monologues 2023, and The Best Women’s and Men’s Stage Monologues 2024. His work has been performed at renowned venues and events, including the South Florida One-Minute Play Festivals, the Midwest Dramatists Conference, the William Inge Theatre Festival New Play Labs, Miami One-Acts Festivals, Short+Sweet Festival in Sydney, Australia, the Valdez Theatre Conference and many others across the U.S. and internationally. He is a lifetime member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

Sunday Sauce

Giancarlo has died. Anna and Emilia run to Tess’s side to help her through this difficult time. But Tess is amazingly calm. Is the make-up of a family blood? Bones? Pasta and opera? If you’re Italian – it probably is.

Claudia Haas — I have been privileged to work as a playwright for many years. As a freelancer, I have worked as a director, actor and teacher of theatre which has given me insight to how theatre works backstage, onstage and off the stage. I have created theatre in schools (including their gymnasiums and cafeterias), caves, nature centers and libraries. Theatre is everywhere. I have over fifty published plays which have seen over 1700 productions in every state in the U.S.A. as well as on five continents. (Still looking for Antarctica.) My plays have been popular in high school one-act play festival competitions and my ten-minutes are used regularly for forensics. My short plays (ten-minutes) are in numerous anthologies. I make my home in White Bear Lake, MN—home of the polar vortex, 10,000 lakes and the exquisite lady slipper orchid. There are cats on the keyboard, grown children nearby and an ever-supportive husband who supports my every endeavor and eats all my pasta dishes.

Waiting to Film Waiting for Godot

Two veteran actors wait on a set for filming to begin. They are eventually joined by a young woman, also waiting. As they wait, they converse about life, art, and the birds circling overhead.

Mathew Green is a Midwest-based playwright, director, and actor who has been creating theatre for roughly 30 years. His plays have been produced in New York, Chicago, and all over the US. He lives in Champaign, Illinois with his stage manager wife and four kids, and he is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Theatre Studies at the University of Illinois.