Epiphanies Plays
Meet the 2025 Winner!
Winter's End
by J.S. Puller
An absurdist retelling of the Persephone myth from Greek legend, examining and questioning the fact that in most tellings of the story, Persephone has no voice and makes no active choices of her own. Paralleling Persephone's helplessness is the current debate raging over reproductive rights. Cassie, a young college student, runs away from anti-abortion activists to find herself in the house of the underworld where she must navigate the absurdities of "the way things have always been done" to try to
help Persephone make a choice of her own.
J. S. Puller is a playwright and author from the Windy City, Chicago. She has a master's degree in elementary education and a bachelor's degree in theatre from Northwestern University. She is an award-winning member of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education and has written about the social-emotional benefits of arts education with the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. When not writing, she can usually be found in the theatre. She is the author of two novels, CAPTAIN SUPERLATIVE and THE LOST THINGS CLUB, both published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. She also has several published plays, including: WOMEN WHO WEAVE (Playscripts, Inc.), PERSEUS AND MEDUSA - IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME! (Lazybee Scripts), THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD (Stage Rights), and five titles with Plays for New Audiences.
Meet the 2026
Semifinalists!
It's a Small Oval Office After All
by Eleanor McCaughey
Disney World cast member Abby has just been demoted to working at the worst place in the parks: The Hall of Presidents. But when she discovers that each night all the animatronic presidents come to life, she devises a plan to make the attraction popular again and regain her former position as a Jungle Cruise skipper. Together with former Presidents James Garfield and Ulysses S. Grant, Abby creates a social media account that quickly skyrockets in popularity, but perhaps not for family-friendly reasons…
Eleanor McCaughey is a playwright, comedian, and actor based in Chicago, her hometown. In 2024 her debut play “How to Kill a Rodent” was selected for Avalanche Theater’s Next Draft series, which produced a workshop that culminated in a staged reading. The play has since been produced in two states and is published with Next Stage Press. Her short play “Happy Hour” was presented at IO Improv in 2023, and her writing has been seen in shows at Second City and the Annoyance Theater. And James Garfield is her favorite president, in case you couldn’t tell.
The Bridal Suite
by Wesley Cappiello
In the weeks leading up to her wedding, Lux gathers with the three women who know her best: her restless sister Juno, her recovering alcoholic maid of honor Nadine, and her guarded future sister-in-law Harper. But far from the women enjoying a stable celebration, Lux struggles to recognize herself inside the life she is about to enter, while Nadine fears losing the person who once saved her, Juno confronts the past she avoided, and Harper questions the future she has defended. By the morning of the ceremony, the suite becomes less a preparation space than a pressure chamber in which honesty can no longer be postponed.
Wesley Cappiello (he/him) is a New York City-based playwright, actor, and director whose work explores love, survival, and human connection through bold, theatrical storytelling. His plays include The Bridal Suite, On Time, Guilty, and Lucy in the Sea With Darvon. His work has been produced or developed with Clear Space Theatre Company, TheaterLab NYC, The Chain Theatre, Teatro LATEA, Cypress Productions, Villagers Theatre, and Green Mountain Shakespeare Festival. Lucy in the Sea With Darvon received a critically acclaimed production at Clear Space Theatre Company, and On Time, his queer epic spanning 160 years, has received multiple staged readings and productions, with an upcoming production at The Tank. Cappiello is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association and The Dramatists Guild.
@wesleycappiello | www.wesleycappiello.com
Meet the Maker
by Dana Schwartz
Paisley Whitman hosts a Podcast about crafters all over the world. When she sits down with sculptor Mason Russell in the Pasadena studio he shares with his artist mother, she realizes there is a darkness to this interview that may force her lighthearted show into deadly true-crime territory.
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Dana Schwartz is an award winning Los Angeles theater artist. She is currently writing a new play commission with Thrown Stone in CT. Her play “Meet the Maker” was written in the EPG Writer’s Group with Circle X in Los Angeles. "@Playaz" was an O'Neill Finalist and had its World Premiere in 2021. "Early Birds" premiered in 2019 and was also presented at the Curtis Theatre. “Presto!”, an O’Neill Semi-Finalist, was developed with The Workshop Theater in New York, and was part of the Hudson Valley Theater Festival. “The Grotto” was part of the Valdez Theater Conference in Alaska, and “First Time” was in the Lanford Wilson New Play Festival. She has also had plays at Morgan Wixon, Surfside Theater, Nomad Theatre, Parish Players, Eclectic Theater, Echo Theatre, Theatre of NOTE, LeftEdge, Sky Pilot, REDcat LA, Disney Hall, Segerstrom Center, La Jolla Playhouse, and LACMA. She has directed plays across the country, most recently the critically acclaimed “Tune In” at Theatre of NOTE and “here comes the night” at Moving Arts, as well as productions at The Road Theater, Topanga Arts Center, Lyric Hyperion, Fierce Backbone and the Victory Theater. As an actress she has performed around the world, most recently in “Paper Walls” at the Inkwell and the 50 character immersive play “Convention”. Dana is the Program Director of the MADLab New Play Development Program at Moving Arts.
This is Not Your Fault
by Elizabeth Shannon
Five high school girls intersect with one another in the crossroads of the gym locker room. In the aftermath of the death of classmate Mya, the tension is stifling. Callie was (is?) Mya’s best friend. But it is Maeve’s boyfriend who is currently on trial for Mya’s death, and Maeve is standing by him. She expects her friends to do the same. With Callie and Maeve on opposite sides of a spectrum, the other girls have to choose a side. Lines of loyalty blur, and truth becomes a fickle thing for these girls who are still somehow supposed to still attend high school in the midst of tragedy.
Elizabeth Shannon is a New York City based playwright and actor originally from Maryland. She is a 2026 semifinalist for the Terrence McNally Incubator with Rattlestick Theatre and was a finalist in the 49th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival. Elizabeth was an inaugural winner of ENOUGH! Plays to End Gun Violence in 2020 and was commissioned to write the program’s Prologue and Epilogue in 2025. She has been in the Downtown Urban Arts Festival twice, including winning second place in 2024. She completed a residency and commission with Young Playwrights Theatre of DC. She is a four time winner of The Blank Theatre’s Young Playwrights Festival, was the 2023 winner of the Wichita State University Bela Kiralyfalvi National Student Playwriting Competition, and was a winner of the 2023 Horizon Theatre’s New South Young Playwrights Festival. She has worked with Baltimore Centerstage, South Coast Repertory, Olney Theatre of DC, Rorschach Theatre of DC, and many others. Her work published with Concord Theatricals and in three Smith and Kraus anthologies. She is a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College with a BFA in Acting and a BA in Theatre: Writing for the Stage.
Princes
by Matthew Moore
1483. The Tower of London. Two young princes, Edward and James, have been locked away after their uncle, Richard III, seized the crown. The brothers pass their time with games and banter, grappling with questions of faith, power, and their place in history. Faced with the impending doom of their fate, this play explores the reality of these two children whose disappearance would become one of the most infamous cold cases in British history.
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Matthew Moore is a playwright and poet originally from New England. Their work has been featured at the Chain Theater, the Toronto Fringe Festival, Durango Arts, the Queens Short Play Festival, the Spark Festival, and Actors Theater of Santa Cruz. Their play "Portugal" won First Place at the Fresh Fruit Festival.
Symbiotic
by Baylee Shlichtman
Marichka, an aquarist at the Jellyfish Museum in Kyiv tries to keep the memory of her friend alive in the midst of the Russo-Ukrainian war. When a veteran starts to frequent the museum, the two form an unlikely connection that will alter the course of their lives. A play about cultivating hope and jellyfish.
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Baylee Shlichtman writes plays about love, autonomy, and magic in the mundane. Recently, her play SYMBIOTIC was awarded the 2026 Louise Wigglesworth Award for Excellence in Playwriting prize, and additional works were featured with Full Circle Players Emerging Voices, PlayGround Festival of New Works, and Theater Masters Take Ten. She has produced or developed her plays with AlterTheatre Ensemble, Curtis Theatre, Flamboyán Theatre, Great Plains Theatre Commons, New Relic Theatre, PlayGround-LA, UC Irvine, Urbanite Theatre, The Vagrancy Theatre, and The Workshop Theatre, among others. Upcoming publications with Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Company, Smith and Krauss, and Concord Theatricals. MFA, UC Riverside '27.
Peggy (& Ben)
by Amy Jo Jackson
Meet Peggy: a Philadelphia socialite with absolutely bonkers hair who married Benedict Arnold an eyebrow-raising one month before he got the ball rolling on the whole treason thing. Their coupling raises a pretty important question, after all: what happens when two people with nary a moral center between them get together?
Amy Jo Jackson (they/all) is a performer, playwright, composer/lyricist and award-winning kabarettist. As a writer, they have two plays on the Kilroys List (Hatchetation and Peggy (& Ben)), and their work has been developed with the O’Neill Theatre Center (National Music Theatre Conference), UNTITLED Musical Project, She-Collective, Greenwood Lake Theatre and Red Bull Theater. She’s been commissioned by EST/Sloan and Flat Rock Playhouse, and has been a finalist for the Larson, the Stanley and Ashland New Play Festival, and is a recipient of the Litsa Tsistera Emerging Artist Grant. Bistro Award-winning kabarettist for their Tennessee Williams solo show The Brass Menagerie. As an actor, Amy Jo has worked at WP Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theater, Company XIV, Red Bull, The Old Globe, Weston, SpeakEasy Stage, Flat Rock, Nantucket Performing Arts Center, Arkansas Rep, and many more. Film/TV credits include Sister Tammy in Dicks: The Musical (A24), And Just Like That, High Maintenance, and the singing voice of an animated crab in Under the Boardwalk. BFA Boston Conservatory.
Hearts of Stone
by Donna Hoke
Lydia Stokes is dreaming about dead psych patients— while she’s awake. She believes they need her help; her husband believes she’s out of her mind. Is there any way they can both be right?
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Donna Hoke’s work has been seen in 48 states and on five continents. She's a Primus, Blackburn, and Laura Pels prize nominee, three-time winner of the Artie Award for Outstanding New Play (SEEDS, SONS & LOVERS, ONCE IN MY LIFETIME), and three-time Artvoice’s Buffalo's Best Writer (and only woman to receive the designation). Donna has served the Dramatists Guild since 2012, and is a New York Times-published crossword puzzle constructor, author, speaker, and screenwriter. donnahoke.com
And our short list represents less than the top 8% of the plays submitted, which is no small feat.
An Institution by Dan Takacs
MFA acting student Tamara reports to her favorite professor, Cassie, an uncomfortable moment in class: her professor, Oz, has kissed a student while acting in a scene. Cassie, unsure of how to serve Tamara, brings some faculty friends in on the secret, and the rumor escalates until the head of the program (Doc), the dean (Alma), and the accused (Oz) all attempt to squash it.
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The Savior & Queen of Uruk by Michael Monroe
Separated by time, but not location... two stories in Iraq intertwine. Dr Bayesh finds an artifact that could redefine history, while Sabit’s ancient quest leads to its creation. Alone yet together they face human and godly dangers, as both learn the meaning of ‘Futurist’.
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Fairy Tales Fairy Told by Ash
A queer 10-minute-play anthology of fairy tales, these plays are modern-day people living old stories anew. From Cinderella to Peter Pan to Little Red Riding Hood and more, they blend together the familiar and the foreign, the queer and the normative, the past and the future.
Communication by M.D. Schaffer
When Reed invites their mother Delilah to therapy with them, Delilah doesn’t know she’s signing up for a public session. Olivia is a PhD candidate who is trying to prove her alternative therapeutic techniques, and is using her session with Reed and Delilah to complete her thesis. They’re all hoping for something different, but their individual healing may be at odds with the pursuit of the day.
Sarai’s Knife by John Minigan
When a vandal cuts the face of a Black student out of a photographic self-portrait on display in the lobby of Boston’s Classical Academy, biracial first-year teacher and collage artist Sarai is asked to capitalize on the rapport she has with the student to investigate the incident. But pressure from the Assistant Headmaster and discoveries about the victim make Sarai question her effectiveness as both a teacher and an artist.
MAPP by Angela J. Davis
Following a bomb explosion and an anonymous tip, a phalanx of police officers bursts into Dollree's home. Her demand to see a search warrant improbably results in Dollree's arrest under Ohio's draconian obscenity laws. Dollree's tenacity, however, results in a landmark Supreme Court decision having nothing to do with obscenity and everything to do with the right of citizens to be "left alone.”
Your Son by Chandler Hubbard
A story about the beginning of the world, or at least about the beginning of humanity, or at least about the beginning of inhumanity. But perhaps it’s all the same thing in the end. This is an examination of a family broken and identities forged and the world somehow still spinning.
Morphology by Jillian Blevins
Nico, a nonverbal Autistic teenager, longs to be understood by his mother Claudia, a former academic who longs most for him to speak. When Claudia’s own mother Arlene intervenes and tries to convince Claudia to place Nico in a group home, their attempts to reach each other grow more desperate, Nico reaches out to one creature he thinks might understand him, and their carefully balanced world starts coming undone.
You Have to Promise by Audrey Lang
Seventeen-year-olds Maeve and Nessa have been best friends their entire lives. Three months ago, they discovered what they had was more than a friendship. When they decide to come out to their families together, Nessa's father kicks her out and the girls scramble to come up with a solution, all the while lying to Maeve's stepmother Rachael and trying to dream their way to being grown-up.
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Serenade by Zach Barr
Lou and Pip arrive at the apartment of Pip’s best friend Mia, to celebrate her recent engagement to a man named Jan. However, Lou and Pip have a secret goal: to break up Mia and Jan’s engagement, since they don’t think he is a good enough partner for Mia.
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The Secret History of the Mahulley Monster (or The Cryptid Play) by Chelsea Sutton
When Dr. Kam Vandermeer visits the Midland Paranormal Convention to present her research on the mysterious Mahulley Monster, C-List paranormal TV personality Peter McGillis seems determined to poke holes in her story. But as they delve deeper into Kam’s evidence, their bickering only unearths something stranger than either one of them can explain.
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Billy to His Friends by Cassandra Rose
Oliver "Billy" Sipple saved President Ford's life in San Francisco on September 22nd, 1975. Two days later, Harvey Milk outed him as gay to the entire world. A diverse ensemble of folks visiting the GLBT Historical Society in modern-day San Francisco become Billy's friends and reclaim history.
Persuasion: A Queer Modern Farce by Lisa Quoresimo
Eighteen years ago, Anne was persuaded to give up the love of her life. When they are suddenly thrown back together, will Celia be able to forgive Anne? Will Anne finally stand up for what she wants? Will Anne’s family of faded television stars tolerate a transition to moderately-priced moisturizers?
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The Synergists by Dylan Malloy
A team of video game developers is building a new game in the wake of a PR crisis. An anonymous tell-all has decimated their company and implicated them all. They must decide who will take the fall - and who will lead them into the future.
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The Ballad of Joan & Jane by Sarah GroustraA quiet American suburb is rocked by the abduction of a sixth grade girl. As they wait for news of her death or her safe return, three of her classmates are visited by the ghosts of Joan of Arc and Calamity Jane as they prepare for their sixth grade formal. A play about the moment when you learn that violence can happen anywhere, and how to grow into your womanhood when becoming feminine feels like becoming prey.
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Raccoon Play by SMJ
On Election Day 2024, in a Danville, OH living room, CB watches an​ emotionally overwhelming ​TikTok covering a school shooting that was not too far away. As the rest of the Danville, OH Lions Club arrive, there are three massive red flags: The bank account is empty, everyone has been lying, and they don’t have any raccoons for the 79th Annual Raccoon Dinner - the community’s primary fundraiser.
comment below by Emmy Kuperschmid
When Kitty starts posting videos online, her mother Margaret quickly steps in, seeing an opportunity and wanting her daughter to “shine.” After all, when you're on the internet, you can be whoever you want to be. But what happens when that isn't aligned with who you really are?
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The Hermit by Hope Campbell Gundlah
In Regency England, a down-on-her-luck peasant named Kit takes a job as an ornamental hermit on a gentleman’s estate – a whimsical new trend among wealthy landowners. The job promises room and board in exchange for isolation, character acting, and the occasional tarot reading, but Kit soon finds herself grappling with loneliness, lost agency, and unstoppable forces both human and supernatural.
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Fun and Games by Joshua H. Cohen
Amy and her brother Arthur are yanked from their quiet, overeducated dropout lives when Arthur's ex-girlfriend needs to be bailed out of jail. The cross-country journey challenges their stifling relationship and, as Melissa escapes with a bounty hunter on her trail, all four fight for control over their own lives. It's the sort of trip that makes you realize what life really is... until someone loses an eye.
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When the Moon Blocks the Sun by Katherine Varga
Marina, a single mom in Ohio, is horrified that her daughter is planning a road trip with strangers from a "Travel Neighbors" app to see a total eclipse in upstate New York. When her daughter dies unexpectedly, Marina takes her place on the trip. As the strangers share stories and squabbles on the long stretches of highway, Marina must grapple with all she didn’t know about her daughter.
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The Practice Room by Aly Kantor
Two young classical musicians from very different backgrounds face their biases and learn to recognize that being rivals is a choice. The play challenges the egocentric thinking so common in college students, in which a single grade, or placement, or outcome feels like the end of the world. Ultimately, it is about accepting your inherent agency, as well as the power of accepting help when the systems that exist weren’t built for you.
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The Hot Tub Play by Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend
Laura and Scott, two strangers connected by a mutual acquaintance, cross paths in a community hot tub. (Antics ensue.)