February 15, 2025 at 7PM

FEbruary 16, 2025 at 3PM

We continue to be committed to creating opportunities for all voices to be heard. With this in mind, we are thrilled to be producing our fifth annual Festival of Short Plays in partnership with AMT Theater, spotlighting stories written by people of color.

AT AMT THEATER

Schedule of Events

Day 1: February 15 at 7PM

Uncut by Gloria Majule

Re: Writing by Caitlin Frazier

Day 2: February 16 at 3PM

Flame White by Maximillian Gill

What I Owe Myself by Michael Mobley 

Mouthwater Lozenges by Cori Diaz

Casting & directors announcement coming soon!

Tickets

Join us for the staged readings! In efforts to make theatre more accessible, tickets to Raise the Page, Uplift the Word: A BIPOC Festival of Short Plays are free to the public! While the tickets are free, new work development is not. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation along with your ticket reservation and support the brave new work & emerging artists that you will see on stage!

About the Plays

  • In the fictional village of Kabus in Northern Tanzania, only the men enjoy sex. Tumaini and Chilyawanhu are "happily married": Tumaini daily fulfills her wifely duties, and Chilyawanhu is running for chief-hood. An unexpected change in the family threatens to destroy their fragile illusion of happily ever after.

  • Who gets to tell your story? Jane is a writer without content, and Dylan has a story to tell. In this new play about the ethics of writing, a young queer couple navigates the beginning of a relationship in which one partner’s childhood secret could jumpstart the other’s career.

  • An Indian-American student returns from his father's funeral to find the women he is renting a room from in the middle of relationship troubles.

  • Three C.N.A.s at a nursing home take a break to watch congress vote on a bill for reparations.

    They discuss their plans for what they will do if the bill is approved.

  • A home aide tries desperately to get close to his paraplegic patient, leading to an unhealthy and obsessive relationship that crosses multiple boundaries

About the PLAYWRIGHTS

  • Gloria Majule is a storyteller born and raised in Dodoma, Tanzania. She seeks to tell stories that bring multiple black voices together from across the world, and are accessible to black audiences no matter where they are. She writes for and about Africans and the African diaspora. Gloria has been awarded a MacDowell Fellowship and commissions by Audible and Atlantic Theater Company. Her canon includes My Father Was Shot in the Back of the Head (Finalist: Relentless Award, O’Neill, Seven Devils, Orchard Project), Culture Shock (Winner: Leah Ryan Prize, Finalist: O’Neill, Alliance/Kendeda, BAPF), Uhuru (Finalist: Blue Ink Award, Premiere Stages, BAPF), and Fifteen Hundred (Finalist: Seven Devils). Gloria is a five time nominee for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her work has recently been developed at ACT - A Contemporary Theatre, the Alley Theatre, the Black and Latino Playwrights Celebration, Vassar’s Powerhouse Theater, the New Harmony Project, Seattle Public Theater and The New Group. She was a guest speaker for the Courageous Art Panel at Starbucks, and the President's Tea at Vassar College. Gloria graduated summa cum laude from Cornell University with a BA in Performing & Media Arts and Spanish, and was the first African woman to receive an MFA in Playwriting from Yale School of Drama. 

  • Caitlin Frazier is a writer, actor, and recent graduate of Georgetown University (2023) with a Bachelor of Arts in English. Her writing journey began in her childhood bedroom with short fiction and has since branched out to include plays and longer fiction. At Georgetown, she was awarded second prize for the Annabelle Bonner Medal for short fiction (Department of English) and second place for the Donn B. Murphy One Acts Festival (Mask & Bauble Dramatic Society). She was a member of the Barbara Walton Playwright’s Arena 2023 cohort, a writers’ group stewarded by Arena Stage in Washington, DC. Her short play, Re: Writing, has been produced at the Capital Fringe Festival (July 2024) and at Georgetown University (Feb 2024). Some of her poetry and prose can be found in Bossier Magazine and the Same Faces Collective.

  • Maximillian Gill was born in India and received his master’s in creative writing in California. His work has been staged by a number of companies and festivals in the U.S., UK, Canada, and Australia. His plays include Stay Up and Keep Rolling (Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference semi-finalist, Premiere Stages semi-finalist), Machines Eat People (Seven Devils Playwrights Conference semi-finalist), Blank Slate (Bay Area Playwrights Festival semi-finalist), and American Divide (Kitchen Dog finalist, Creede Repertory finalist, Landing Theatre Company semi-finalist). A short film based on his monologue recently showed at the Tasveer South Asian Film Festival. He is a member of the New Ambassadors Theatre Company and the American Renaissance Theatre Company in New York City. Much of his work can be read on New Play Exchange.

  • Michael Mobley writes about the intimate and private lives of Black Americans throughout America’s past, present, and future. Sometimes using different genres to tell these stories. Writing about the inner lives of Black Americans allows him to shatter stereotypes and reveal a part of America that has been historically ignored and cast aside. His full-length play, Monsters, had a reading/workshop at Quick Silver Theater Company and Prologue Theatre’s Foreword New Works Series. It placed 2nd in the Echo Theater Company’s New Play Competition and was a Featured Finalist for The Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Competition. It was also a Finalist for the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference and The Playwrights Realm’s Scratchpad Series. His full-length, Feel Alive, was developed at Echo Theater Company and was a Semifinalist for the O’Neill’s National Playwrights Conference. He was also a Finalist for the Greenhouse Residency at SPACE on Ryder Farm and the Many Voices Fellowship at the Playwrights’ Center. His work has been supported by the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Echo Theater Company (National Young Playwrights in Residence Program 21-22). He is currently a Third-Year M.F.A. Playwriting candidate at the University of Texas, at Austin.

  • Cori Diaz is a playwright finishing up her BFA at NYU Tisch in Dramatic Writing. Most recently, she has had her plays workshopped at The Tank’s LimeFest, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center’s Rough Draft Festival, The Workshop Theater’s Winter Playwriting Intensive, and was a finalist for the LAMBDA Literary Writers Retreat. She has also been a finalist in Hartford Stage’s Write On!, a selected candidate in Middlebury College’s Young Writers’ Conference at Breadloaf Campus, and a Selected Playwright at the Eugene O’ Neill Theater Center’s Young Playwrights Festival. She has also done training for improv, sketch, and stand-up with The Onion, People’s Improv Theater, John Crane Sketch, The Groundlings, and Second City Chicago. For the past two years, Cori has worked as a Managing Actor-Educator for the nonprofit Speak About It!, a theater company that teaches boundaries and consent education to college students.

FAQ

  • Each day will be approximately 90 minutes, no intermission, with a talkback to follow.

  • Please be advised some plays may contain sensitive subject matter. Recommended for ages 16+.

  • Please contact kbell@abingdontheatre.org with any sponsorship inquiries.

Support

We need your help to create the opportunity for all voices to be heard. With your support, we can keep the festival a fully free-to-the-public event. Make your tax-deductible donation today!

WATCH Last year’s february artist spotlights

Learn about past festival playwrights Nicholas Pilapil, Adrienne Dawes, Ayibatari Owei, and Marcus Harmon!

AMT THeater