Posted by Liz and John Attaway, 6/2/25

Next generation of writers to sharpen their skills with week of performances,
playwrighting workshops and seminars

Inman Park’s Horizon Theatre is hosting over two dozen talented young playwrights from across the country in its 27th Annual New South Young Playwrights Festival (NSYPF), June 1 – 7. From a wide pool of script submissions from college students nationwide, the theatre company selected 25 aspiring writers to attend the free week-long intensive. The chosen students will be able to flex their creative muscles in a packed week of playwrighting workshops and seminars with professional theatre actors, directors and playwrights. NSYPF will culminate in a free showcase of the new works. The New South Young Playwrights 5-Minute Play Festival will be hosted onstage at Horizon Theatre at 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 7.

On May 2, the National Endowment for the Arts rescinded Horizon Theatre’s $30,000 grant that funds the New South Young Playwrights Festival annually. As the grant was initially awarded in November 2024, Horizon was in the final stages of planning for the festival— students had been accepted, personnel hired, airline tickets and housing reserved.  Despite the sudden loss of funding, Horizon was able to move forward with the festival as planned due to the generous support of individual and foundation donors.

“The New South Young Playwrights Festival is our most nationally impactful program, identifying and nurturing writers that have gone on to major careers in theatre, television and film,” said Horizon Theatre Co-Artistic/Producing Director Lisa Adler. “These young writers are at Horizon from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. every day of the festival, learning and growing in a supportive, nurturing environment. We focus on introducing them to the world of professional theatre and media writing, building their skills, bringing in professional artists to perform their plays, and creating a community of fellow writers and mentors that can sustain them long after the Festival. It’s an intensive experience that hundreds of NSYPF alumni have called truly life-changing.  We are eternally grateful for the donors who stepped up to help us ensure the show can go on! It’s an honor to give these gifted young people a chance to shine, and we hope to continue this tradition for years to come. The future is bright with this next generation of talented playwrights.”

The lead mentors for this year’s New South Young Playwrights Festival are professional playwrights and educators France-Luce Benson, Kira Rockwell and Crystal Skillman.  France-Luce Benson is a Haitian-American playwright and Assistant Professor at CSU San Marcos. Her plays have been produced and developed in New York by Atlantic Theatre Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Billy Holiday Theatre, The New Black Fest, Apollo Theatre, New Perspectives Theatre, The Fire This Time Festival, and regionally by Crossroads Theatre, The Fountain Theatre, Juggernaut and City Theatre Miami, among others. Internationally, her works have been shown at the Afropea Festival in Marseilles, France; and Global Voices Theatre in London. Kira Rockwell teaches Dramatic Writing for the Stage and Screen at Georgia State University. Her work has also been developed with The Kennedy Center, NNPN, Great Plains Theatre Commons, Working Title Playwrights and more. Returning for her second year as a lead mentor Crystal Skillman, a professor at The New School (NYC) and Pace University, is an internationally acclaimed playwright whose Rain and Zoe Save the World premiered in the UK in 2022 and whose award-winning musical Mary and Max had its sold-out, critically acclaimed premiere at the largest theatre in Austria, Theatre Linz.Her play The Rocket Men will be produced in Atlanta by Synchronicity Theatre this fall.  The Festival is also led by three associate mentors who are currently pursuing their MFA in playwriting: Mo Holmes (Columbia), Ellie Melick (Carnegie Mellon), and M Kamara (Southern Illinois University Carbondale).

The 25 winners of the New South Young Playwrights Festival will visit Horizon Theatre from colleges nationwide, including: Columbia College Chicago, Bennington College, Temple University, Augsburg University, Carnegie Mellon University, Wake Forest University, Palm Beach State College, Georgia State University, Troy University, Howard University, University of North Carolina, Agnes Scott College, Emory University, Ohio University, University of Virginia, San Diego State University, North Carolina Central University, Oglethorpe University and Clark Atlanta University.

As a part of the festival, the students will also be tasked with drafting a new short play to be featured in the 27th Annual New South Young Playwrights 5-Minute Play Festival. During the intensive, the plays will be workshopped and rehearsed with professional Atlanta actors taking on the roles. The week will culminate in the New South Young Playwrights Short Play Festival, a public reading and showcase of the students’ work on Saturday, June 7 at 2 p.m. The NSPF Short Play Festival is free and open to the public.  No reservation is required.

The Festival is made possible this year by the George M. Brown Trust Fund, generous individual donors, and Horizon’s season sponsors: City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, the Georgia Council for the Arts and The Shubert Foundation. Local restaurant partners providing meals for participants as in-kind support include Hudson Grille, Flying Biscuit, The Albert, Wylie and Rum, Barcelona Wine Bar, Donnie’s Donuts, Elmyr, Wrecking Bar Brewpub, Savage Pizza, BarTaco, Ali Baba Mediterranean, Mezcalito’s, The Daily, Gene’s BBQ and MetroFresh.

For more information about the New South Young Playwrights Festival, visit our website at https://www.horizontheatre.com/education-and-community/young-playwrights/

LEAD TEACHING ARTISTS (see bios below):

France-Luce Benson (CSU San Marcos)

Kira Rockwell (Georgia State University)

Crystal Skillman (The New School and Pace University)

MFA TEACHING ARTISTS:

Mo Holmes (Columbia)

Ellie Melick (Carnegie Mellon)

M Kamara (Southern Illinois University Carbondale)

PARTICIPANTS:

Kayla Karnesky (Columbia College Chicago – 4th year)

Timmy Torinus (Bennington College – 3rd year)

Gabe Gibboni (Temple University – 4th year)

Lucía Salazar-Davidson (Augsburg University – 3rd year)

Moyo Ifafore (Carnegie Mellon University – 2nd year)

Aderinola Adepoju (Wake Forest University – 2nd year)

Julia Avery (Palm Beach State College – 2nd year)

Kai Chisholm (Georgia State University – 4th year)

Alexis McNeal (Troy University – 4th year)

Niveah Glover (Howard University – 1st year)

Taufik Abdul-Jaleel (The University of North Carolina at Charlotte – 4th year)

Nevaeh Harris-Redd (Agnes Scott College – 2nd year)

Ainsley Powers (Emory University – 3rd year)

Bobbi Salas (Columbia College Chicago – 4th year)

Carmen Foster (Ohio University – 1st year)

Julia Shuttleworth (University of Virginia – 2nd year)

Ian Rein (Emory University – 4th year)

Gianni Ly (San Diego State University – 1st year)

Anh Vo (San Diego State University – 1st year)

Shahim Faircloth (North Carolina Central University – 4th year)

Oluwatosin Thompson (Georgia State University – 2nd year)

Eden Lipham – (Oglethorpe University – 3rd year)

Anthony Cosgrove (Temple University – 2nd year)

Nyla McKoy (Clark Atlanta University – 4th year)

Amelia Milstein (University of Virginia – 4th year)