Presented by Performing Arts Department

For over 20 years the Performing Arts Department has produced the A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Festival as a vehicle to support and develop new plays written by WashU students. The annual Festival begins with a university-wide solicitation of new, unproduced plays. Several plays are selected, through an anonymized screening process, to be developed in a two-week event in September.  During those two weeks, each play will be workshopped with a professional dramaturg, a faculty director and student cast.  The Festival culminates in a public staged reading of each play.  Supported initially by A.E. Hotchner himself, a WashU alum, writer and businessman, and then by the Newman’s Own Foundation, the company Hotchner co-founded with Paul Newman, the Festival is now fully supported by the Performing Arts Department.

Guest dramaturg, Liza Birkenmeier, (AB ’08), a recent playwright-in-residence at New York talent hub Ars Nova, will mentor the writers during the Hotchner Festival workshop in September 2022.

The Fern
by Melia Van Hecke (LA ’23)
Directed by Jeffery Matthews
Friday, September 23 at 7:00 p.m.

Democratic Airlines
by Zachary Stern (LA ’23)
Directed by Tom Martin
Saturday, September 24 at 7:00 p.m.

All Readings take place in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre.

Admission is Free.

Please check the COVID-19 Policy for up-to-date policies and protocols.