AN OVERVIEW

of SART's ScriptWorks

SCRIPTWORKS, the Playwrights’ Conference receives as many as 100-200 scripts each year. A small army of carefully recruited readers circulate each submitted script; those recommended for further review are read again by a committee of theatre professionals. Once all scripts have been reviewed, SART invites up to five playwrights to the conference to hear their plays read by professional actors. Playwrights join the directors, actors, and audiences in discussions and critiques following each reading. One script may be considered by SART to be included and fully produced in one of the following SART summer seasons of six shows.

Traditionally, the conferences are held each year in the spring over one weekend in the historic Owen Theatre on the campus of Mars Hill College in Mars Hill, North Carolina. The Conference is free and open to the public; all are welcome to attend. Playwrights invited to participate in the conference are selected by late-January and receive room and board while attending the conference. If a play is chosen for production to be included in SART’s regular summer season, it will be scheduled for a one to three week run in Owen Theatre during June, July or August of one of the following years. The author of a script selected for production in a regular SART season will receive a $1,000 honorarium plus room and board.

Since its opening season in 1975, SART has produced fifty-three new plays, many supported by a New Works grant from the North Carolina Arts Council. World premieres at SART include (to name a few) Ark of Safety by Howard Richardson and Francis Goforth in 1975; Wednesday’s Children by C. Robert Jones (1980); Ed Simpson’s The Battle of Shallowford (1990); My Castle’s Rockin’ by Larry Parr (1993); William Doswell’s Full Moon Over Montmartre (2001); Finding Clara by June Guralnick (2003), Mountain of Hope by William Gregg and Perry Deane Young (2004); Finding The Absent Crescent by Gina Pauratore (2005); Taking A Chance On Love by C. Robert Jones (2006); and The Memory Collection: The Legend of Bascom Lamar Lunsford by Randy Noojin (2007).

SART recognizes that developing new scripts is neither easy nor a short process. The testing and development of new material at the conference allows the playwright to refine and build the work toward possible production. SART’s commitment to developing and producing new plays has distinguished the company from other regional summer theatres and earned a Professional Division Award from the N.C. Theatre Conference (NCTC).

Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre
P.O.Box 1720 / 44 College Street
Mars Hill, NC 28754

828.689.1384 (business office)
828.689.1239 (box office) (May-August)
828.689.1272 (fax)
email SART business office