7th Annual Event Features Diverse Mix of Topics and Genres
DURANGO, Colo., April 8, 2025 – Durango PlayFest has announced four new works that will headline its 7th annual play development festival, June 24-29. PlayFest’s mission is to bring well-known and emerging playwrights, directors and actors to Durango to incubate new plays, hold free events for the community, and culminate the week with captivating, staged readings for local audiences who give feedback on the works.
“Providing playwrights the opportunity to develop new work in a creative, collaborative environment is essential to the future of theatre,” said Felicia Lansbury Meyer, PlayFest artistic director. “We believe the mix of genres and topics selected this season will ignite thoughtful discussion between these talented playwrights and audience members.”
Husband and wife writing team from Denver, LUCY WRIGHT and WILLIAM MISSOURI DOWNS, will workshop their dramedy titled “Becky and Her Lung Transplant.”
Synopsis: Desperate for work and facing middle age, a divorced Hollywood screenwriter takes a crap job writing an “inspiring” family channel movie about a child’s lung transplant, only to discover that the “true story” may not be true, nor is her own life.
WRIGHT was nominated for the Directors Guild of America’s Lillian Gish Award for her screenplay adaptation of Eudora Welty’s “The Hitchhikers.” Her play “Kabuki Medea” was produced at the International Theatre Festival in Israel, the Durban Performing Arts Center in South Africa, the Kennedy Center, and the Berkeley Rep, where it won a Bay Area Critics Award.
DOWNS’ plays have been produced at more than 300 theaters across the United States. His comedies have also been performed in Spain, Canada, South Korea, South Africa, Russia, Singapore, Switzerland, Austria, Israel, India, England, and Slovenia. In Hollywood, he earned an MFA in screenwriting from UCLA and wrote for several NBC sitcoms.
BILL CAPPOSERE is excited to bring his drama, “Drowning,” to local audiences for feedback.
Synopsis: Wracked with grief, Roger reconstructs his drowned son’s bedroom in their empty backyard pool. Roger’s neighbor, Simon, is drawn into Roger’s anguish. Both men are emotionally haunted by their potential responsibility for the drowning, but also literally haunted (possibly) by the dead boy himself.
CAPPOSERE is a writer and teacher from Rochester. His full-length plays have been given staged readings as part of GEVA Theatre’s developmental Regional Writer’s Showcase and its New Plays Festival, while shorter works have been performed as part of the Rochester Fringe Festival. His fiction and non-fiction works have appeared in multiple journals and anthologies, and garnered mention in the “notable essays” section of several Best American Essays.
IAN AUGUST brings his absurdist comedy “D.Q.M. or Drag Queen Magic” to the 2025 festival.
Synopsis: Drag queen Letta Celebrate just wants to live her life lip-syncing Lady Gaga at birthdays, weddings, and the occasional bar mitzvah, but when a strange woman asks for help after losing everything, Letta finds herself desperate to save her or be doomed to repeat the same day over and over.
AUGUST is an award-winning, internationally produced playwright who lives in New Jersey with his husband and four cats. His works have been developed at the Powerhouse Theatre Festival (NY Stage and Film), PlayPenn, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, Ashland New Plays Festival, Red Mountain Theatre Company, Orlando Shakespeare Theatre, New Jersey Repertory Company, City Theatre of Miami, the Garry Marshall Theatre, UC Davis Department of Theatre and Dance, Williamstown Theatre Festival, the New York, Philly, and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, and elsewhere.
ANDREA APTECKER’s thriller “There Are Monsters” injects magical realism into the PlayFest line-up.
Synopsis: When a wealthy husband and wife welcome a pair of stranded strangers into their elegant but isolated home in the countryside, disturbing connections come to light. With a storm raging and no cell coverage, the evening takes a macabre turn and the strangers won’t leave until they get what they came for.
APTECKER’s plays have been performed in theatre festivals in the United States and UK. She recently received a scholarship to attend the Rocaberti Writers’ Retreat in Spain (2025). She’s a semi-finalist in the Dramatists Guild Foundation National Fellowship Program, a finalist in the Gary Garrison Playwriting Award for 10-minute plays, and a semi-finalist in the Garry Marshall Theater New Works Festival. Aptecker also attended the Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive in 2021.
The play readings will feature nationally recognized actors and directors. A full cast list will be announced in early June. The festival’s full schedule and ticket information will be posted at durangoplayfest.org in late April.