2025 Colorado New Play Festival

The Colorado New Play Festival, located in Steamboat Springs, Colorado brings a diversity of voices, ideas and beliefs to the American Stage.

For more than twenty-five years, CNPF has been celebrating the raw power of words and providing a platform for some of the most talented playwrights in the country to further develop new works.

SHOWS

Creature Feature

Person with glasses and tattoos in denim jacket.

By Noah Diaz

FRI, JUNE 13 • 5:00pm

Illustration of a stick figure climbing a mountain with a flag on top.

Presented by

Synopsis: Eleven-year-old Topeka has always lived in the shadows of The Macabre Mausoleum, her family’s hit television show that showcases low-budget horror films. But when her mother, the show’s indomitable host, decides to quit for good, the family is plunged into chaos. As her father scrambles to keep the family business afloat, Topeka is unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight, forced to take on a new role she never could’ve imagined playing. CREATURE FEATURE is a coming-of-age memory play about the beauty and horror of changing the roles we’re assigned to play in life.

Noah Diaz is a playwright and screenwriter from the Iowa/Nebraska border. His plays have been produced at Steppenwolf, Roundabout Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Salt Lake City Acting Company, and Baltimore Center Stage. Commissions from La Jolla Playhouse, Roundabout Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club/Sloan, Baltimore Center Stage, Audible/Amazon Studios, and Arena Stage. His work has been developed with Berkshire Theatre Group, Two River Theater, The Sol Project, First Floor Theater, and The Playwrights Realm, where he was a Page One Resident Playwright. Noah is a recipient of the ASCAP Cole Porter Prize, a six-time recipient of playwriting awards from The Kennedy Center, and a nominee for an Outer Critics Circle Award. In television, he has written for ABC, Hulu, Peacock, 20th Television, The Walk-Up Company, Nyle DiMarco, and Eva Longoria’s UnbeliEVAble Entertainment. MFA: Yale School of Drama.

Dawn

A woman with long black hair pulled back, wearing a white top, looking at the camera with a neutral expression against a plain background.

By Tuyết Thị Phạm

FRI, JUNE 13 • 8:00pm

Logo of Everyman Theatre featuring a stylized face and text "Great Stories, Well Told."

Presented by

Synopsis: Set against the backdrop of historical trauma, a mother and daughter confront their legacy of love and loss. Mary, a first-generation Cambodian-American, struggles with feelings of guilt, anger, and grief as she navigates her parents' experiences and their differing beliefs as survivors of the Khmer Rouge. Their journey to reconcile the past is both painful and liberating, ultimately guiding them toward a path of healing.

Tuyết Thị Phạm is a Helen Hayes Award-winning artist recognized for her contributions to theater, television, and film. With a career spanning over twenty years, she's participated in more than forty theater productions at venues including Everyman Theatre, Centerstage, Arena Stage, Olney Theatre Center, Signature Theatre, Ford's, and The Kennedy Center. Her play "Dinner and Cake" premiered at Everyman in 2022. In 2023, she was commissioned to write and co-direct "Generation Rise," which was produced by Ping Chong and Company at the Reston Arts Center. Additionally, her one-act play, "A Dozen Paper Tissue Roses," premiered at The Gallery Players in Brooklyn, NY, in 2024. Currently, she serves as an Associate Artistic Director at Everyman Theatre in Baltimore, Md.

Vienna, Vienna, Vienna

Smiling woman with short curly hair wearing a blue top and earrings, set against a black background.

By Carey Perloff

SAT, JUNE 14 • 4:00pm

Logo of Six Points Theater with blue star-like design and tagline 'Revealing Common Threads of Humanity'.

Presented by

Synopsis: Three generations of a close and complicated Jewish family arrive in Vienna for an award ceremony and end up reconsidering everything they believe in while eating a great deal of excellent chocolate cake.

Carey Perloff is a director, playwright, producer and educator who served as Artistic Director of American Conservatory Theater (1992-2018) and of Classic Stage Company, NYC (1988-1992). Her plays include Vienna, Vienna, Vienna (Finalist, Jewish Play Project); Edgardo or White Fire (commissioned by WTF, workshopped at Writers Theater); If God Were Blue (Colorado New Play Summit 2025); Kinship (Theatre de Paris w/ Isabelle Adjani and WTF w/ Cynthia Nixon) ); Higher (ACT); The Fit (SF Playhouse). Recent directing: Leopoldstadt (Huntington Theater and STC), As You Like It (Santa Cruz Shakespeare), The Lehman Trilogy (Huntington and Repertory Theater of St. Louis), Home? (Voices Festival, D.C.), Ibsen’s Ghosts (Seattle Rep and WTF), Pale Sister (Gate Theater, Dublin), Queens (LJP), Private Lives (Stratford), A Thousand Splendid Suns, Merchant of Venice, The Oedipus Cycle starring John Douglas Thompson. Author: Beautiful Chaos: A Life in the Theater (City Lights Press) and Pinter and Stoppard: A Director’s View (Bloomsbury Methuen). careyperloff.com 

Muse of Fire

Woman in pink shirt, glasses, with hand on chin, seated against white background.

By Lauren M. Gunderson

SAT, JUNE 14 • 7:30pm

Northlight Theatre logo, blue and gray text on white background.

Presented by

Synopsis: MUSE OF FIRE is an intimate two-hander exposing the life and love of William Shakespeare and his surprisingly wild-hearted wife, Anne. Exploring art, ambition, and the searing fuel behind the world's greatest playwright and his bold and brazen wife, MUSE OF FIRE grapples with the sacrifices and joys of a life in the theatre, and the heart of a storyteller and his muse.

Lauren M. Gunderson has been one of the most produced playwrights in America since 2015, topping the list thrice including 2022/23. She is a two-time winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for 'I and You' and 'The Book of Will,' the winner of the William Inge Distinguished Achievement in Theatre Award, the Lanford Wilson Award and a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her plays have been translated into a dozen languages and produced across the world, and her new anthology, “Revolutionary Women,” is published by Bloomsbury.  LaurenGunderson.com and @LalaTellsAStory

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Friday, June 13

4:00pm-4:45pm Salon Discussion

Meet the Playwrights of the 2025 Colorado New Play Festival in conversation with Festival Curator, Joel Ruark to learn more about the process of writing for the stage.

5:00pm-6:30pm  Creature Feature by Noah Diaz

Dinner on your own. Reservations encouraged!

8:00pm-9:30pm Dawn by Tuyết Thị Phạm

Saturday, June 14

4:00pm-5:40pm Vienna, Vienna, Vienna by Carey Perloff

Dinner on your own. Reservations encouraged!

7:30pm-9:10pm Muse of Fire by Lauren M. Gunderson

FESTIVAL LOCATIONS

Rehearsals

Colorado Mountain College - Bristol Hall

1275 Crawford Ave, Steamboat Springs, Colorado 80487

  • Rehearsals take place each day from 1:00 – 5:00 pm and are open to the public.

  • Please contact Matthew for information about attending open rehearsals and planning your visit.

Performances

Bud Werner Memorial Library

1289 Lincoln Ave, Steamboat Springs, Colorado 80487

  • All festival performances are held inside the Library Hall.

FESTIVAL ALUMNI + PAST PRODUCTIONS

For more than 20 years…

The Colorado New Play Festival has an enviable track record with a history of more than 70% of its work moving on to regional and New York stages in short order. Many of these go on to have multiple productions.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

The Colorado New Play Festival is unique in that we partner with theatre companies to bring plays from page to stage. We do not consider plays from independent playwrights or from their representatives. Works must be submitted by a theatre company interested in developing the piece for production. Play submissions must also be full-length.

The submission period for the 2025 Colorado New Play Festival has now ended.

If you are with a theatre company interested in submitting in the future, contact our Executive Producer, Matthew Laws, to discuss the Festival and how you can be involved.

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