Carolina New Works Play Festival

In the summer of 2025, UNC Charlotte’s Department of Theatre, in partnership with Three Bone Theatre, announced the launch of the Carolina New Works Play Festival. Through readings, workshops, and in-depth collaborations, the Carolina New Works Play Festival (CNWPF) showcases the creative process of developing new plays.

The Department of Theatre and Three Bone Theatre collaborate to evaluate submissions and to hire directors, dramaturgs, and performers to work with the selected playwrights. Submissions, accepted August through December, are read and evaluated by a diverse team of theatre practitioners, playwrights and scholars. Three plays are selected for workshop presentations. Audiences will witness the creative process, and their feedback will actively be a part of the plays’ future life.

The CNWPF will contribute to the region’s cultural landscape, strengthen our theatre community, enrich the artform, and foster representation by celebrating new stories and perspectives. 

TRE

Written by T.J. Lewis
Directed by Renee Welsh-Noel**
Stage Management by Ashlin Heise**
Dramaturgy by Melissa Robinson

On the last day of senior year, Tay, Rey and Bree find themselves where they always are — together, shootin the shit and fumbling through life, contemplating what comes next. What are they doing with their lives? Where should they go to college? Who do they wanna be as grown-ups? And why do they keep kissing each other? Tre is a cosmic love letter to the 2000s and a wish for all Black boys to love each other softly, honestly and openly.

How I Got Forgotten

Written by Glenn Rawls
Directed by Jeff Epstein
Stage Management by Lydia Elder**
Dramaturgy by Chris Ortiz

In How I Got Forgotten, Martin, a newly single gay man, returns to his small Southern hometown after his mother’s heart attack. As Martin sees his mother slip toward dementia, he realizes she has been covering for his father, a retired history professor who is in the grips of Alzheimer’s. So begins a story about caregiving that unravels into questions about memories, family, faith, the boy next door, music clubs and the Declaration of Independence.

You Can’t Smoke In Burbank

Written by Skylar Schock
Directed by Marcella Pansini
Dramaturgy by Donna Marie McMillan

You Can’t Smoke in Burbank is a dark comedy about the intersection of AI and art, exploring what makes something human. When three Los Angeles based creatives with competing ambitions use ChatGPT to finish an assignment, they are thrust into unexpected circumstances that challenge their ideas of success, entertainment, and making something matter.

Playwrights must be from the Carolinas (South or North). If you believe you are a Carolina voice but no longer live in the region, please share how you are connected to the Carolinas in your submission application.

We consider plays (and musicals) with a cast of at least two actors and no more than six actors. (doubling is acceptable if the playwright provides a doubling list).

We do not accept one-person shows. 

We are happy to read plays and musicals at any stage of development but do not consider new drafts of previously submitted or produced work. 

Submissions for the 2027 festival are open September 1-December 15, 2026. We appreciate your patience as we read every submission and give each one ample attention. You will hear from us within four months. If you are still waiting to hear from us within four months, please know that we will contact every playwright with our decision and are still in our selection process. 

CNWPF provides 20 hours of rehearsal with a dramaturg, director and actors. This series presents a staged reading production with three performances of your play with audience feedback sessions.