by Jennifer Brown
Directed by Patrick Mullins, Asst. Director: Leila Stephanie

Can truth prevail in the teaching of history to school children? Sixty-five years apart, two Select Committees of the Virginia Textbook Commission face this question. In 1955, a committee member challenges misinformation in a proposed Virginia history manuscript for elementary students. Fellow members are reluctant to stir up unrest in communities of color, and with the state commission. In a 2020 meeting, one member protests the racial equity embraced in a new manuscript of a middle-school text. The chair tries to protect the committee’s work while grappling with intimations of unrest and potential violence.
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The Proteus New Plays Festival showcases community-driven staged readings of 4 scripts that have been developed in the Z Playwrights Lab or by Z Artist Members. The staged readings give the playwrights an opportunity to work with a director and a volunteer cast to see their script “on its feet” for the first time, and add the most crucial element to developing a play, The Audience!

Each reading is presented twice during the 2 weeks of Proteus Festival. Audiences are given the opportunity to rate the plays via a survey focused on the elements writing an engaging script and story. Ratings are averaged to select the PNPF Audience Favorite. The Audience Favorite receives a workshop production 2-week run in November, as the second Curtain Up! New Plays Series play of the 23-24 season.

by Clyde Santana

On the eve of his retirement, a frustrated undercover officer, reflecting on some of his past experiences, questions his decision to retire and return to his family and his artistic life or continue to work undercover for his former bigoted supervisor.
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The Proteus New Plays Festival showcases community-driven staged readings of 4 scripts that have been developed in the Z Playwrights Lab or by Z Artist Members. The staged readings give the playwrights an opportunity to work with a director and a volunteer cast to see their script “on its feet” for the first time, and add the most crucial element to developing a play, The Audience!

Each reading is presented twice during the 2 weeks of Proteus Festival. Audiences are given the opportunity to rate the plays via a survey focused on the elements writing an engaging script and story. Ratings are averaged to select the PNPF Audience Favorite. The Audience Favorite receives a workshop production 2-week run in November, as the second Curtain Up! New Plays Series play of the 23-24 season.

VIEW THE FULL PROTEUS LINEUP

NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL SPONSORED BY

David R. Goode Charitable Lead Annuity Trust
The Shubert Foundation
Clyde Santana and Valli Meeks
City of Virginia Beach Arts and Humanities Commission

PROTEUS FESTIVAL SPONSORED BY

by LouJ Stalsworth
directed by Sharon Cook

Widower Ray Calabria battles 42 years of haunting memories as he nears the sale of his house to a young couple who, that same day, must make a life-shaping decision of their own. This is a love story of then and now.

“Boxes of Someday” is told alternately in real time and as a memory play during which promises are made ~ some kept, others put away and forgotten, only to be remembered too late to be kept. The play is funny at times, tearful at others, and it is likely the story someone we know has already experienced, or one which we will eventually live ourselves.

Each reading is presented twice during the 2 weeks of Proteus Festival. Audiences are given the opportunity to rate the plays via a survey focused on the elements writing an engaging script and story. Ratings are averaged to select the PNPF Audience Favorite. The Audience Favorite receives a workshop production 2-week run in November, as the second Curtain Up! New Plays Series play of the 23-24 season.

VIEW THE FULL PROTEUS LINEUP

NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL SPONSORED BY

David R. Goode Charitable Lead Annuity Trust
The Shubert Foundation
Clyde Santana and Valli Meeks
City of Virginia Beach Arts and Humanities Commission

PROTEUS FESTIVAL SPONSORED BY

by P.A.Wray
directed by Sharon Cook

When Frances, wife of General George Henry Thomas, a strategic winning general in the Civil War, finds out her now ailing and harassed husband has agreed to meet with a journalist with unknown motives, her protective instincts and suspicions go into overdrive, putting undue stress on her husband, and a bill at risk for passing. A bill that would protect the right to vote for Black Freedmen in the South – something her husband had fought hard to protect but failed.
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The Proteus New Plays Festival showcases community-driven staged readings of 4 scripts that have been developed in the Z Playwrights Lab or by Z Artist Members. The staged readings give the playwrights an opportunity to work with a director and a volunteer cast to see their script “on its feet” for the first time, and add the most crucial element to developing a play, The Audience!

Each reading is presented twice during the 2 weeks of Proteus Festival. Audiences are given the opportunity to rate the plays via a survey focused on the elements writing an engaging script and story. Ratings are averaged to select the PNPF Audience Favorite. The Audience Favorite receives a workshop production 2-week run in November, as the second Curtain Up! New Plays Series play of the 23-24 season.

Meet me at The Z to get creative! Form a Creative Team at Proteus Festival. All ages and levels of experience are welcome. Grab up to 5 friends and come to The Z on 9/27 at 6pm to receive your prompt. Then, over the course of 5 days, create a new work in one of these disciplines: theater, music, film or a mix of all three, and on opening day of Proteus Festival, 10/5 at 7:30pm, present that new work at The Z on the Main Stage. Creative Teams receive rehearsal space, technical support, and special access to all Proteus Festival events. Local professionals in each discipline are available to provide mentorship and lend a helping hand when you need one.

On October 5, our creative teams will kick off the Proteus Festival with performances. 

All levels of experience are welcome. For ages 16 and up! Email our Community Engagement Liaison Heather Shannon with questions.

VIEW THE FULL PROTEUS LINEUP

by Jennie Brown
Directed by Patrick Mullins, Asst. Director: Leila Stephanie

Can truth prevail in the teaching of history to school children? Sixty-five years apart, two Select Committees of the Virginia Textbook Commission face this question. In 1955, a committee member challenges misinformation in a proposed Virginia history manuscript for elementary students. Fellow members are reluctant to stir up unrest in communities of color, and with the state commission. In a 2020 meeting, one member protests the racial equity embraced in a new manuscript of a middle-school text. The chair tries to protect the committee’s work while grappling with intimations of unrest and potential violence.
——-
The Proteus New Plays Festival showcases community-driven staged readings of 4 scripts that have been developed in the Z Playwrights Lab or by Z Artist Members. The staged readings give the playwrights an opportunity to work with a director and a volunteer cast to see their script “on its feet” for the first time, and add the most crucial element to developing a play, The Audience!

Each reading is presented twice during the 2 weeks of Proteus Festival. Audiences are given the opportunity to rate the plays via a survey focused on the elements writing an engaging script and story. Ratings are averaged to select the PNPF Audience Favorite. The Audience Favorite receives a workshop production 2-week run in November, as the second Curtain Up! New Plays Series play of the 23-24 season.