Calling all singers, songwriters, and musicians! This is your opportunity to take the mic. Test out a new original song or share your favorite cover. It’s up to you. The most important thing is to share a song for all to hear in this welcoming, supportive, and creative environment. In partnership with Jim Bulleit and Fox Music Artist Members have early access to sign up for performance slots via private link. Learn more about Artist Memberships here. 

with Roberta Lea

Unleash the transformative power of music and explore its multifaceted influence on the human mind, emotions, and overall mental well-being. Drawing upon research and personal musical insights, A Sound Mind uncovers the various ways music can positively impact mental health, promote self-expression, regulate emotion, and reduce stress. Connecting a series of self-written songs with social-emotional learning competencies, the program offers participants insights and strategies for accessing the therapeutic potential of music.

A Z Ticket Bank, FREE Family Time performance provided by Arts for Learning. Funding for this performance comes from Virginia Beach Arts and Humanities Commission, Helen G. Gifford Foundation, Virginia Commission for the Arts, and National Endowment for the Arts.
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Roberta Lea is an award-winning singer/songwriter who has been featured in media that include NPR, The Boot, Virginian Pilot, and Nashville Scene, receiving praise for her ability to “score hits with her catchy, textured, and beautifully sung originals.” She’s a member of the Black Opry, which was recently inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and an inductee into CMT’s Next Women of Country Class of 2023. A former teacher, Roberta continues educational work with Zeiders American Dream Theater and Arts for Learning.

with Sarah Osburn Brady

Once upon a time, there was a little girl—or a little boy—or a dog, or a dragon, or a fairy, or a giant. And that person, or animal, or mythical creature had an adventure, and the adventure brought choices, and the choices ushered in change. In this program, audience members have the chance to choose their own adventures, and even shape the outcomes of the tales, as they travel through stories to discover a world of character built with imagination.

A Z Ticket Bank, FREE Family Time performance provided by Arts for Learning. Funding for this performance comes from Virginia Beach Arts and Humanities Commission, Helen G. Gifford Foundation, Virginia Commission for the Arts, and National Endowment for the Arts.
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Sarah Osburn Brady is a storyteller, teaching artist, and writer whose backgrounds in theatre and education influence her storytelling. She taught communication and theatre at multiple universities before making her way into the storytelling world where she spans genres of historical, traditional, literary, and personal tales. Passionate about stories that help us see each other and the world around us, Sarah specializes in finding the heart of each story she tells.

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