Pictured: Summer Wallace, Producing Artistic Director, Urbanite Theatre. Photo courtesy of Urbanite Theatre.

Sarasota’s Urbanite Theatre is always pushing the envelope. Home to some of the most contemporary and challenging stories that can be found in the country, Urbanite Theatre has carved out a name for itself amongst its fellow theaters on Florida’s cultural coast. This spring, from May 3rd to May 7th, Urbanite Theatre will host its fourth annual Modern Works Festival, an experience curated by Producing Artistic Director Summer Wallace.

“The festival is a celebration of women in theater. It features three stage readings by three female playwrights–we narrowed it down to three from submissions all across the country–each playwright receives a professional cast as well as professional director, stage manager, and additional team members,” says Wallace. “Throughout the festival patrons also have the opportunity to go to other panels that feature other women in the arts in the southwest Florida area.”

The 2023 playwright finalists are Brenda Withers, presenting Westminster, Kate Douglas, presenting The Apiary, and Jenna Rashid, presenting Therapy. Attendees of the festival will have the opportunity to see staged readings of all the finalists’ plays and vote on the festival-winning playwright.

“The selection process started last year,” says Wallace. “We’ve actually been reading plays since December–it’s a panel made up of all women–and each play is passed on to the next round based on how they’re scored and each play get passed to other readers so that every play gets read more than once, just to make sure that each play is getting scored fairly and has the opportunity to be a finalist.”

The Modern Works Festival will also feature a Women in Theatre Panel Discussion series. “The panel is made up of all female theater leaders in the industry. On the 4th we have Carolina Franco, the President and Artistic Director of CreArte Latino Cultural Center; on the 5th we have Bess Wohl, our guest playwright of the festival that we’re presenting in partnership with Hermitage Artist Retreat along with Emilia Sargent, Producing Artistic Director at Tampa Rep, and Georgia Guy, Producing Artistic Director of ThinkTank Theatre; and finally on the 6th we have Julie Leach, Executive Director of the West Coast Black Theatre Troupe,” says Wallace.

Modern Works Festival, May 3rd - May 7th, 2023, 1487 2nd Street, Sarasota, 941-321-1397.

Pictured: Summer Wallace, Producing Artistic Director, Urbanite Theatre. Photo courtesy of Urbanite Theatre.

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