Winter 2024 Festival of New Works Events through our partnership with Mill Mountain Theatre

For more than four decades, Mill Mountain Theatre has had the development of new plays as part of their core mission.  They have been home to a prominent national playwriting contest, premieres of new plays on both the Trinkle and Waldron stages, the Norfolk Southern Festival of New Works, CenterPieces and their ongoing partnership with the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins University has helped Roanoke gain an international reputation as an artistic home for new work since that program launched in 2007. Each year, Hollins brings dozens of professional theatre artists from all over the globe to our city as faculty, guest speakers and visiting artists mounting productions.

This year, the Winter Festival of New Works features two plays, please read below to learn more about these shows. 

Randi & Roxanne 
January 18, 19, 20 at 7:30 pm
January 21 at 2 pm

How do you know what you really want? And how do you know what’s best for you?

Randi Beaudelaire, junior year transfer and secret poet, has a major inconvenience: she’s totally in love with her best friend Roxanne and can’t seem to stop writing sappy poetry about it. So when Kristy, the new star of the softball team, asks Randi for help on how to woo Roxanne, what’s she supposed to do? Tell the truth? A queer romantic comedy about secrets, sonnets, and softball.

Chrysalis 
January 25, 26, and 27 at 7:30 pm
January 28 at 2 pm

Go on, child. You may break, consumed, but you will come out transformed. 

Faced with a pregnancy scare, Mirage chooses to enter an illusive mind space and confront her own fragmented memories of childhood head-on. Along the way she comes face to face with her memories and the past versions of herself that she had shed many years before. Dealing with the aftermath of childhood trauma, this piece illuminates the process of healing from the past and breaking the cycle.

The Playwright’s Lab at Hollins University is more than a traditional three-year degree program. Similar to an intensive workshop/retreat or conference, it promotes inclusivity and collaboration, not exclusivity and competition. Students work with some of the most important names in new play development. Unlike other programs, The New Works Initiative provides opportunities for the production of student work at professional theatres. The combination of intense training and professional experience gives Hollins playwriting graduates an edge in the industry.
In 2018, the Playwright’s Lab received fourteen national awards and commendations from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival–including the Kennedy Center Gold Medallion, considered one of the highest honors in educational theatre.

Hollins playwrights get work done.