Why We Write: PlayPenn Playwrights In Conversation

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Six playwrights come together to explore how the stories we see on stage are created and why they matter beyond the theatre. They will examine the challenges of developing new work, where ideas come from, and how theatre responds to a challenging cultural moment.

Featured Playwrights

Lulu Duffy-Tumasz, Aly Gonzalez, August Hakvaag, Roger Q. Mason, Sarah Mantell, and Zoe Palmer

About the 2026 New Play Development Conference

PlayPenn’s nationally recognized New Play Development Conference brings together readings of new plays alongside a citywide series of civic gatherings, workshops, artist exchanges, and public conversations focusing on art, democracy, historical memory, belonging, and collective imagination. This community-focused approach to new play development reflects a broader vision of theatre in a shared civic life that illuminates what theatre can do, who participates in it, how it unfolds, and why it matters. 

The 19-event Conference brings together 22 playwrights participating across workshops, conversations, and five new work presentations while expanding its scope to include an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Eboni Booth (Primary Trust), free playwriting workshops for adults, teens, and women over 50, and a public conversation examining constitutional history and civic identity.

Additional programming includes a community workshop for queer theatre makers; a convening on innovation in theatre-making with leaders from Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Cannonball Festival, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Lemonade Stand, and Tiny Dynamite; and an acting lab focused on approaches to new play development and cross-community exchanges among theatre artists.