Kentucky Theatre Association

26/09/2024

HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS AND STUDENTS - PLEASE READ

Hope you're doing well! I have an opportunity I want to share with you. I'm the chair of an award committee at SETC called the Keynote Emerging Artist of Promise (KEAP) Award. We provide (4) awesome high school theatre enthusiasts from the southeast with an opportunity to attend the annual SETC convention in the spring.

More detailed info about the award can be found here: https://sites.google.com/view/keapaward2025/keap-award-2025

As someone connected to the world of high school theatre enthusiasts in the southeast - I thought that perhaps you, or any of the teachers in your network, might be interested in nominating a student.

Here is the link to this year's Nomination Form: https://forms.gle/RtDAafy7XrafzVeBA

In an effort to consolidate the processes for SETC's many award programs, the Central Office has adjusted our deadlines from previous years. Moving forward applications will open in the Spring and close in September. However, we know that our KEAP community is accustomed to a very different timeline - so we have been granted an extension for this year.

Priority Deadline for KEAP Award Nominations: October 15th, 2024 at 11:59pm
If you or anyone you know would like to submit a nomination but is unable to meet that October 15th deadline, please have them email me at [email protected] so we can discuss alternative options.

Please feel free to forward this email and this information to anyone you think might be interested. The award committee continues to strive to reach a wider and more diverse audience with these awards, and word of mouth goes a long way in getting the news out about this really amazing award.

Thanks so much for your continued support, and we hope to hear from you soon!
mdb

Maranda DeBusk (she|he|they)

The Southeastern Theatre Conference implemented an initiative to support and encourage young theatre artists in our region: The Keynote Emerging Artist of Promise Award (KEAP). The idea for the award was born when 2005 Convention Keynote Speaker Samm-Art Williams asked that his honorarium as a speak...

31/05/2024

The time is come! The first submission for Roots of the Bluegrass 2024 opens TOMORROW!

The submission window open tomorrow!!! We are excited to see your work!!

07/05/2024

It's that time again! Submissions will open through www.kentuckytheatreassociation.com starting June 1! Visit the website for all the details!

16/11/2023

We look forward to seeing folks at the state convention this weekend! Please use and/or when you post all your amazing photos! Break a leg, everybody!

03/08/2023

Registrations for the 2023 High School Festival and Community Theatre Festival are live! We hope to see you in Pikeville!

A non-profit theatre organization that celebrates the rich and vibrant theatrical activity taking part in Kentucky. We seek to facilitate open communication among the academic, community, and professional theatre companies in the state; promote high theatrical standards; and help build awareness and...

31/07/2023

Don't forget!

02/07/2023

Submissions are open all month for the Roots of the Bluegrass New Play Festival - 10 minute play category. Follow this link for all the info, and send in those plays!

A non-profit theatre organization that celebrates the rich and vibrant theatrical activity taking part in Kentucky. We seek to facilitate open communication among the academic, community, and professional theatre companies in the state; promote high theatrical standards; and help build awareness and...

24/05/2023

Submission windows will be open soon for the 2023 Roots of the Bluegrass New Play Festival! Stay tuned for more information!

19/11/2022

Congratulations to all the playwrights and thank you to all who entered!

10-Minute Plays
1st- Those Who Can, Librarian by Don Lampton
2nd- 1-800-Ask-Chloe by Donna Renae Phillips
3rd-(tie) Happy Birthday Ray by Bill McCann
Lies Were Told by Matt Rifenburg

One-Act Plays

1st-As You Like Me - Claire Wilson
2nd-(tie) 10,987 and Counting by Teri Foltz and Stacey Roberts
Frankenstein by Jeremy Kisling and Adam Montague
3rd- Ladies Afternoon Tea Party by Jim Appleby

Full-Length Plays

1st- The Minister’s Daughter by Richard Cavendish
2nd- (tie) Challenging Brown by Cris Blak
The Sheriff’s Children by Derek Trumbo
3rd- Eleven by Teri Foltz

19/11/2022

Much fun was had last night at the Roots of the Bluegrass Festival Reading and Awards Ceremony! Thank you to Christie Connolly at Campbellsville University for organizing a great event!

18/11/2022

If you'd like to watch a zoom feed of tonight's readings and awards ceremony for the Roots of the Bluegrass Playwriting Festival, here is the login information:
Meeting ID: 921 6688 1390
Passcode: 498751
Congratulations to all the winners!


Zoom link in the comments

05/11/2022

Load-in is well under way for the central region high school festival! Break a leg, everyone! It's gonna be a great day!

30/10/2022

Finalist number 4:

Bio: Derek grew up in the West end of Louisville in a biracial family. Raised by bricklayers, he spent his childhood learning masonry skills from his mother and father.

Derek enjoys reading and he learned to express himself while studying playwriting [in prison, at Northpoint Training Center through a program
called Voices Inside/Out [1], created by Pioneer Playhouse [2] and co-founded by director and screenwriterRobby Henson, also the Managing
Director of Pioneer Playhouse, Kentucky’s oldest outdoor theater.

The Sheriff's Children: When a small town sheriff's duty to the public he serves comes into conflict with his family, he must choose between the job he loves and his own children. The Sheriff's Children is an ode to justice, America, and family values.

12/09/2022

Finalist number 3:

Bio: At the age of 55 Bill McCann went back to school to get an MA in theatre from the University of Kentucky. Since graduating from UK in 2012 Bill has helped lead Kentucky Playwrights Workshop, produced 37 short plays as part of the Kentucky New Play Series at the Kentucky State Fair, had his first full-length play produced, and now—for the second time—is a finalist in this contest.

His previous KTA 10-minute play entry--Strained Pears—was rewritten as a 10-minute radio play and produced by Dynamix Productions, Neil Kesterson and Tammy Ray sound engineers, Alana Ghent director, with the acting talents of Bill Goodman, Executive Director of Kentucky Humanities, Deborah Martin, director of theatre at Berea College, and Alana Ghent, EKU, for the WEKU (88.9 FM) news magazine Eastern Standard produced by Tom Martin. Listen to the play here. https://esweku.org/track/3133107/july-21-2022-radio-play-strained-pears

Bill is currently working on an MFA in Creative Writing at EKU, writing the column Arts’ Watch for the Wi******er Sun, hosting an occasional series about Theatre Production in Kentucky for Eastern Standard and WEKU and, oh yeah, he’s retired.
(Note: Bill’s wife, Jeanine Grant Lister, say’s “He’ll never retire!”)
Bill and Jeanine live in Wi******er with three black cats and Halligan the Wonder Dog.

Teasers:
On his 18th birthday, while living with his mother in a Victorian house alongside a railroad track in rural Kansas, Ray faces a choice about his future. Should he stay at home and go to the local community college, or head to Cleveland to pursue his dream of playing in the NBA?

If you have a radio play script (or a stage script you are willing to adapt) you’d like considered for production by Eastern Standard’s Theatre of the Mind series send it to [email protected]

05/09/2022

Finalist number 2:

Bio: After retiring as a research psychologist and educator, Don submitted a script to a flash play festival, and the rest, as they say, is hysteria. His stage plays include Anna the K, Food Dude Talking Food, Filial Malfeasance, OBOTRAY, Who is Man, Yourology (the kidney stone play), Perchance, and Cleopatra Phobia.

He is a member of the Kentucky Theater Association, the Dramatists Guild of America, and the Playwright’s Round Table.

As a playwright, he uses his full name, Donald Ralph Lampton, to honor his late father: noted Louisville jazz bassist Ralph Lampton. A native Louisvillian, he is an alumnus of Pleasure Ridge Park High School, the University of Louisville, and the University of Kentucky. Currently, Don divides his time between Lexington, Kentucky and Palm Coast, Florida.

Teaser: On his last day on probation, librarian intern Dan faces three Herculean challenges. A life will hang by a thread, he will be asked to do the impossible, and true love will be won or lost.

02/09/2022

Finalist number 1:

Donna Renae Phillips is a singer, playwright, and composer with Bachelor degrees in Music Education and Performance from the University of Kentucky and Master degrees in Divinity and Marriage and Family Therapy from the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Donna’s play Sumbahdee, won the 2011 KTA Roots of the Bluegrass New Play Award. Coauthored with Georgana Riddell, Donna’s historical play, Blow Ye the Trumpet, Blow! successfully debuted at historic Camp Nelson in 2010. Donna has served as Assistant Director for The Stephen Foster Story for the past two seasons and has been a member of the cast for 17 seasons. Currently Donna is the Adult Handbell Choir Director at Second Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Kentucky, a supply pastor, and a marriage and family therapist.


1-800-ASK-CHLOE TEASER: Teetering on the brink of an emotional breakdown, Sam reaches out to a crisis hotline for support, but instead of finding an understanding compassionate human voice on the other end of the phone, Sam’s cry for help is answered by the pitiless voice of C.H.L.O.E.

26/06/2022

It's that time again! Spread the word to all those Kentucky playwrights - The first Roots of the Bluegrass submission window opens July 1!

It’s time to kick off this year’s Roots of the Bluegrass playwriting contest. To enter:
1. Email your script in . Pdf format to [email protected]
2. In the body of the email include the following:

-Title of script
-Category you’re entering (10 minute, one-act or full length)
-Your Name
-Address
-Email and phone number
-Are you a current resident of Kentucky?
-Has the script you’re submitting been performed or selected to be performed ?
——————————————————————————-
Submission Window and additional information:

After registering for the festival, you will receive a confirmation email. The submission windows are as follows:

10-minute Plays (July 1-31)
One-act Plays (August 1-30)
Full-length Plays (September 1-30)

Participant Qualifications

Eligible playwrights must be current KY residents.
To be considered, plays should have received no previous full production. Previous staged readings and development sessions are acceptable and encouraged.
Playwrights may submit no more than one play per category.
Categories of Entry:
Full-length – Plays exceeding 80 minutes in length or divided into multiple acts.
One Act – Plays in one act exceeding 10 minutes in length, but less than 80 minutes in length.
Ten Minute – Plays that target a ten minute running time. (Script in the standard format between 6 and 10 pages)
KTA reserves the right to inquire in depth about your association with the state of Kentucky if necessary and has the right to deny any play submitted if the aforementioned criteria are not met. We further reserve the right to consider works that don’t fit strictly into the criteria.

Required Formatting

All submissions must be in .pdf format. Other formats will not be accepted.
Your name must not appear on the script.

Suggested Formatting

Font– 12pt either Courier or New Times Roman fonts only.
Margins – Left margin at 1.5” All others at 1”.
Action – Inset consistently at between 1.5 inches and 2.5 inches. No parentheses.
Character’s Name – Each character’s named centered over their dialogue.
Dialogue – Directly below the character’s name with no space between. No inset.
Parentheticals – (Action of a single character set inside parentheses, just before or during the character’s dialogue.) Inset consistently at between 1.5 or 2.5 inches to both the right and the left. Use parentheses. No space between.

Adjudication
FIRST ROUND
Plays will be read by two judges each. All judges will have a 15-page minimum reading requirement in addition to reading the included play synopsis for each play. Judges will read full 10-minute play submissions. Plays will be scored according to the system below, giving a 1-10 rating in each category:

Plot Strength
Character Strength/Development
Overall Score (would you read again or like to see it on stage)
The ten plays receiving the highest points will move on to the next round of judging. Points will be calculated by adding the total points awarded by each judge. The top ten of each category will move on to the second round.
SECOND ROUND

Plays will be read by two judges each. Judges will not adjudicate the same play twice.

First round rules remain in place, although judges will read 20 pages of full lengths and one-acts in addition to the included play synopsis, and entire script of 10-minute entries.

Plays will be scored according to the system below, giving a 1-10 rating in each category:

Plot Strength
Character Strength/Development
Overall Score (would you read again or like to see it on stage)
After the second round, the 5 plays with the most points (calculated by adding Round One and Round Two points) will move on to the final round and will be named as semifinalists.
THIRD ROUND-FINAL ROUND

The third round will consist of the top five plays in each category.

Judges will be assigned to a particular play category, and all judges in that category will read all finalist plays.

There is no minimum page requirement as judges will be required to read the full play no matter what category they are judging.

Plays will be scored according to the system below, giving a 1-10 rating in each category:

Plot Strength
Character Strength/Development
Relevancy/Relatability
Overall Score (would you read again or like to see it on stage)
The top three plays in each play category will be selected for a reading at the Roots of the Bluegrass New Play Festival either in conjunction with KTA’s Fall Festival or virtually. Playwrights in the full-length and one-act categories will be responsible for making a ten-minute cutting of their play for the festival.

09/04/2022

Had our first board meeting of 2022 today! We've got lots of plans up our sleeves, and can't wait to see so many more people in person this year!