Civic Theatre Announces Winners of 4th Annual Northeast Indiana Playwright Festival

The 4th Annual Playwright Festival will be held May 31 - June 2, 2013 at the Arts United Center and the Fort Wayne Museum of Art (adjacent at 303 & 311 E. Main Street, Fort Wayne, IN). The featured play will be Lombard by Michael B. Druxman, starring Jessica Butler as screen legend Carole Lombard. The featured play opens Friday, May 31 at 8pm and will also be performed during the festival on Sunday, June 2 at 2pm (with post-show discussion featuring playwright Michael B. Druxman). Lombardwill run weekends through June 9.

The winning play, The Wedding Gift will be presented as a fully-staged production during the festival premiering on Saturday, June 1 with a post-show discussion featuring playwright Nancy Carlson Dodd and will also run weekends through June 8. Previously, Carlson Dodd was the winner of the 1st Annual Northeast Indiana Playwright Festival in 2010 for her play The Ladies in Cabin 10.

Special guest at the festival will be Douglas Post, Chicago Regional Representative of the Dramatists Guild of America. Post will lead a workshop "Playwriting and Services of the Dramatist Guild of America" on Saturday, June 1 at 10am. Lombardplaywright Michael B. Druxman will lead a workshop "Writing for the Stage, Screen and Television" on Sunday, June 2 at noon. The 3-day festival will also include play readings of the 2nd & 3rd place winning plays with post-discussions featuring the winning playwrights.

Open to current or former residents of Indiana this year (and to those in a 90-mile radius of Fort Wayne), scripts were submitted by 24 playwrights from Fort Wayne, New Albany, South Bend, and Richmond in Indiana and from Virginia, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, New York, and Kentucky These 24 scripts were adjudicated by a committee of local and National Theatre professionals who determined the winners.

This year's festival is sponsored by the 80/20 Foundation, Inc. In addition, Civic Theatre was recently awarded a grant from the Dramatist Guild Fund in support of the 2013 program. The festival was established to help nurture the creative writing talents of playwrights in Indiana.

Civic season sponsors include Lincoln Financial Group and 21 Alive. Civic Theatre is an Arts United funded member group and receives support from the Auer Foundation, Foellinger Foundation, English, Bonter, Mitchell Foundation, Fort Wayne Community Foundation, and the Indiana Arts Commission.

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