The Play Lab, started in 1995, features developmental readings of scripts from 20 minutes to 2 hours in length. Actors are sent scripts a month prior to the Conference. The readings receive one rehearsal the day before their performance, with the playwright acting as the director. The readings are then responded to by a three-person panel, and the audience gives their feedback as well. Additionally, authors have a private meeting with one of their panelists to further discuss the script.
Currently the Lab presents readings of 50-60 plays per year. Panelists include nationally acknowledged playwrights, director, designers, and dramaturgs, as well as some of the leading figures in Alaska’s theatre.
2023 Play Lab invited playwrights
Joe Barnes’ The Trillionairess (Houston TX)
Aurora Jane Behlke’s Founders, Keepers (Seattle WA)
Jillian Ashley Blevins’ The Bed Trick (Rowley MA)
Paul Braverman’s Deuce Cooper: Pier Pressure (Fremont CA)
DC Cathro’s Fixed (Chicago IL)
Joshua H. Cohen’s Furies (New York NY)
Timothy Crawford’s No Champagne in the Champagne Room (Springfield IL)
Elizabeth Dement’s No Place Like Gandersheim (Los Angeles CA)
Claire Catherine Dettloff’s chew the fat (Phoenix AZ)
Sarah Lyn Eaton’s Well Run Dry (Binghamton NY)
Evan Edwards’ Mixed Messages (Astoria NY)
Emily Everett’s Tryhard (New York NY)
Daniel Emlyn-Jones’ Niqabi (Oxford UK)
Alisha Espinosa’s The Archive (New York NY)
Danielle N. Frimer’s Monarchs (Highland NY)
Douglas R. Gearhart’s The Fat Sergeant (Dunedin FL)
Emma Gibson’s Lumin (Haverford PA)
Cody Goulder’s The Natural Law (Phoenix AZ)
Jay Hayden’s Rising and Gliding Out (Omaha NE)
Nicholas Walker Herbert’s Isolato (Sacramento CA)
Luis Roberto Herrera’s Poolside Glow (Sunrise FL)
Samuel Thomas Heyman’s Triptych – A Love Story In Three Acts (Nashville TN)
Rand Higbee’s Born a Clown (Yachats OR)
Caroline Hull’s Break (Altamonte Springs FL)
Rebekah Kane’s Is Anyone Watching This? (Astoria NY)
Topher Kielbasa’s Our Father (Brooklyn NY)
Tae-nyun Kim and Rebecca Padrick’s We Were Made For Fantastic Spaces: or The Laundry Play (Chicago IL and Anchorage AK)
Charlotte Lang’s Rocket Yourself to the Moon (Coventry CT)
Leif Hans Larson’s Shake The Disease (Sebastopol CA)
Katy Laurance’s The Good Word (Anchorage AK)
Erin Lerch’s Pinch Point (Mattapan MA)
Barry Levine’s Aliens (Los Angeles CA)
Willow Gale McLaughlin’s Just Like High School (Burlington WA)
Seth McNeill’s Bullet (Athens NY)
Dante Medema’s Beneath the Mask (Anchorage AK)
David Molnar and Alicia Payne’s Justice for Maurice Henry Carter (Toronto, Canada)
Brandon Monokian’s Echo and Narcissus Blast Third Eye Blind Outside a Diner in New Jersey at 2AM (Ocean City NJ)
Tom Moran’s Holy Fire (Fairbanks AK)
Erin Nicole Moughon’s Simon Says (New York NY)
R. D. Murphy’s The Pros and Cons of Implosion (Beverly MA)
Michael C. O’Day’s Before Vinson (Brooklyn NY)
Dave Osmundsen’s Is This All This Is (Pompton Plains NJ)
Laura Sansing Pfizenmayer’s Cancer is a Pain In My Ass (Gulf Shores AL)
Thomas Pierce’s The Prophet Elon and Bezos (Seattle WA)
Bridgette Dutta Portman’s Dead People (Fremont CA)
Jan Probst’s The Prophecy of the Crows (Berkeley CA)
Tori Rice’s Maybe for a Minute (Lakeside CA)
Greg Romero and Mike Vernusky’s Falling Down the Mountain of Great Storms (Lafayette LA and Houston TX)
Kathryn Ryan’s What Help Looks Like (Bronx NY)
Jesse Daniel Saywell’s Truth Be Told (Los Angeles CA)
Carey Seward’s Monumental (Fairbanks AK)
Michael Shaeffer’s Terminator 4: Judgment Dork, a parody (Estherville IA)
Tamar Shai’s What if Susan Boyle Couldn’t Sing? (Lake Oswego OR)
Marcus Scott’s Tumbleweed (West New York NJ)
Sanjit Sengupta’s Global Alligator (Walnut Creek CA)
Scott C. Sickles’ The Presidential Chili Cook Off (Forest Hills NY)
A.A. Milne’s Once On A Time, adapted for the stage by Andrea Staats (Tampa FL)
Kevin Michael Wesson’s Chance Hotline (Chicago IL)
Kelsey Jameson Sullivan’s Worm Teeth (Issaquah WA)
Hope Villanueva’s Buzz (Rockville MD)
Philip Middleton Williams’ A Tree Grows in Longmont (Palmetto Bay FL)
Heloise Wilson’s American Standard (Brooklyn NY)
Other links of interest:
Read advice from six-time Obie winner Marshall Mason on how to direct a reading.
Read the general advice for actors reading in the Lab.