4th Annual Neurodiversity new play festival.
Spectrum Theatre Ensemble, in partnership with the Die-Cast Collective, proudly presents the 4th Annual Neurodiversity New Play Festival. This year’s festival will feature original work written, performed, and produced by neurodivergent artists from around the country.
The goal of the festival is to generate a marketable, replicable body of work, as well as develop and nurture both company members’ art and serve the community. In 2020, STE began developing 10-minute plays with neurodivergent artists. The pieces are written by established and emerging playwrights, and the festival serves as a springboard for future large-scale productions, including one-act and full-length plays. In 2021, STE’s inaugural festival concluded with an outdoor production of the first grouping of 10-minute plays, along with the world premiere of The Importance of Being (A Play in Earnest) by Jeremy J. Kamps. In 2022, STE partnered with Die-Cast Collective and EPIC Players to do a series of 10 minute plays as well as a collaborative devised piece called Sense of Time.
The 4th Annual Neurodiversity New Play Festival will continue a partnership between STE and Die-Cast Collective, which is crucial to the neurodiversity movement in New England and will support a network of theatres dedicated to neurodiversity inclusion in the arts. It will include nine 10 minute plays as well as performances by the Die-Cast Collective.
Check back here throughout the summer to see the latest and greatest updates on this year’s festival, including artists announcements, tickets, and more!
If you have any questions, please contact executiveassistant@stensemble.org
Partners
featured neurodivergent SHORT PLAYs.
space
by: Harmon dot aut
In a waiting room of an underfunded mental health clinic in rural Oklahoma, Margaret - a nonbinary/Autistic/Mad poet - battles Medicaid red tape and practices scripts to mask her own dreadful anxiety. In the course of an afternoon, Margaret befriends Jubilee, a transfemme Extreme Sports enthusiast, and Ricky, a bodybuilder living with schizophrenia…
a firework unexploded
by: Dave Osmundsen
Ned loves fireworks. Gina doesn’t. A seemingly meaningless difference that forces them to confront their insecurities, flaws, and what they mean to each other.
Miss Diagnosed
by: Kyle A. Smith
A psychiatrist’s office, present day. Felicia, the psychiatrist in question, waits for a new patient to arrive. The person who walks in is not a patient, however, or at least not a new one. Felicia diagnosed Annie with Borderline Personality Disorder fifteen years ago, and that diagnosis has shaped Annie in profound and painful ways. With a new diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder and a wounded heart, Annie has come for an apology from the psychiatrist who failed her.
Morning after the Mêlée
by: Scott C. Sickles
A blood-soaked field, the morning after the mêlée. Two knights, the elder Cristobal and the dashing young Miguel, lay where they fell, exhausted from the battle of the night before. They wake and find the monster they’ve slain, a demon of doubt named Astaroth, has not remained dead. The demon is a representation of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and it tries to convince Cristobal that his loving companion is not so loving. That Cristobal himself is not worthy of love.
Keeping mum
by: Craven Poole
A disaster-zone household shared by mother and daughter. Hen is erratic, complex and difficult. Her daughter, Egg, is just trying to operate in the chaos. They've fallen into a pattern over time; Egg is more caretaker than child, Hen is more patient than parent. This is how it has always been in their house. When Egg attempts to break the cycle of dysfunction in her little family, the conflict raises a question. Was this inevitable? Are they sick because of their life choices, or because genes always prove out?
The Loudness of it all
by: Mashuq Mushtaq Deen
A vague not-a-place, outside of time, during a thunderstorm. A and B talk, while the child C mostly listens. They all have ear protectors. A and B discuss the loudness of the world, reflect on their lives, and predict the end of those lives. A meditation on broken hearts.
Candyland Correctional
by: Maya Jones
A choreo play. Four souls share their experiences with the American Prison System and its devastating effects on black families. Teenage Angst, Abandoned Inner Child, Happy Child, The Stenographer – all take a huge risk by opening up and exposing their Truth: the hurt, the pain, the joy, the confusion, the rage, the watching. Candyland Correctional is both a plea for every citizen to get to work dismantling the carceral system, and an exasperated F.U. to our complacency/apathy in accepting these human rights abuses as the status quo.
Talk is cheap
by: Anthony Rutenbeck
A non speaking autistic young man excoriates those who make assumptions about his abilities/life. He admonishes ableist practitioners to stop judging others and focus on what they are ignoring: the incredible beauty our planet gives us – a leaf, a flower, a difference.
Codebreakers
by: Charles Hughes
A codebreaking room. Robert and Alice are coworkers, tentatively friends. A new code covers their whiteboard workstation, and the jumbled message they’re meant to figure out plays off a tape. The jumble suggests a time limit, perhaps even a threat. Robert and Alice leverage their different skills to rebuild the message, revealing that is in entirely banal. Job well done.
VIP REception.
Join us after the shows on Saturday for a special reading of Harmon dot Aut’s award winning play Tornado Tastes Like Aluminum Sting featuring a surprise guest reader!