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

Is Heaven Still Blue for the Fallen Angels

Six months after surviving a mass shooting at their church, a revered pastor and his wife enter what they hope will be their final therapy session, only to confront buried grief, unraveling faith, and the devastating truth that survival may have cost them more than they’re willing to admit.

Cris Eli Blak’s work has been produced and performed around the world. He was a staff writer on the hit series Power Book III: Raising Kanan. He is the inaugural winner of the Black Broadway Men Playwriting Initiative, the 2024 Charles M. Getchell New Play Award, and the Atlanta Shakespeare Company’s inaugural winner of the Muse of Fire BIPOC Playwriting Festival. He is currently the recipient of the inaugural Pages in Paris residency at Le Studio d’Art in France, 2025-26 Signpost Fellowship, 2024-2027 Core Writer with The Playwrights Center; and is a writer-in-residence at the 2026 Rhinebeck Writers Retreat and the 2026 Orchard Project, and the inaugural LDK Productions Writers’ Residency. He was previously an artist-in-residence with Ojai Playwrights Conference, Abingdon Theatre Company, The State University of New York – Oswego, Liberation Theatre Company, La Lengua Teatro en Español/AlterTheater Ensemble, Fosters Theatrical Artists Residency, Paterson Performing Arts Development Council, and Quick Silver Theatre. He was the recipient of the Emerging Playwrights Fellowship with The Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre Company and an inaugural fellow with the Black Theatre Coalition. His work has been published by Smith & Kraus, Inc., Ghost Light Publications, 1319 Press, Flowersong Press, YOUTHPlays, Applause Books, The PlayGround Experiment, New World Theatre, Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble, and in the Black Theatre Review.

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.