Producing the 2026 Michigan Playwrights Festival

The Michigan Playwrights Festival is one of my favorite initiatives at Theatre NOVA. Every year, I’m reminded of what can happen when playwrights, actors, directors, audiences, volunteers, and donors come together around new work.

Producing the 2026 festival has meant helping bring four new full-length plays from the page into the room. My role has been both creative and logistical: coordinating with playwrights and directors, supporting casting and rehearsals, managing the many moving pieces of the festival, and helping create an environment where artists can experiment and develop their work.

What makes MPF especially meaningful to me is that these plays are shared while they are still in progress. Theatre is a live art form, and new plays need the energy of a room full of people. A reading gives playwrights the chance to hear their words spoken, see how audiences respond, and discover what the piece might become.

I love that I get to help create the conditions for that process.

The 2026 festival features The Sanctuary by Ann E. Eskridge, Cakewalk by Kenndall Wallace, ASHE by Krystle Dellihue, and Dispersion by Joël Henning Doty.

At its heart, MPF is a community effort of creation. As playwright Sarah Elisabeth Brown puts it, “Plays are cultural conversations that mature in community.” Producing this festival gives me the opportunity to help build that community and to watch new stories take their first steps toward the stage.

Info and tickets: https://www.theatrenova.org/michigan-playwrights-festival