2023 Spring Play Reading Festival
Be among the first to see three exciting new plays in progress at the 2023 Spring Play Reading Festival!
New Play Development is the lifeblood of Florida Studio Theatre. Reading series, like the Spring Play Reading Festival, provide select works in progress with a platform, a live audience, artistic support, and valuable feedback in order to nurture the development of new plays for the stage. To date, FST has produced over 30 world premieres, many of which have been supported and nurtured through FST’s New Play Development program. Now, we invite you to be among the first to see some of the most recent works from around the country, brought to life through script-in-hand readings performed by professional actors. This spring lineup includes the comedy Advice by Brent Askari, the quirky musical Todd VS. The Titanic with Book by Scott Rothman, Music by Joe Kinosian, and Lyrics by Kellen Blair, and the dark comedy Bleeding Hearts by Steve Yockey.
2023 Spring Play Reading Festival
ADVICE
by Brent Askari
WHEN Friday, April 21, 2023 @ 3PM
WHERE FST's Keating Theatre
TICKETS $10 | BUY
OR Subscribe and see all three readings for as little as $15 | SUBSCRIBE
Gary Thompson is the absolute last person in the world you would ever expect to write a self-help book. And now, not only has he done just that, but his book, titled “How to Maximize the More Successful ‘You,’” is actually getting published. Eager to celebrate his news with friends, Gary stops by Joy and Ron’s place unannounced…on their wedding anniversary. When efforts to get Gary to leave backfire, Ron and Joy find themselves trapped in a relationship exercise from Gary-The-Guru’s book. But what starts out as an innocent game, suddenly implodes, bringing to light deep secrets, pain, and skeletons in closets.
TODD VS THE TITANIC
Book by Scott Rothman, Music by Joe Kinosian, and Lyrics by Kellen Blair
WHEN Friday, April 28, 2023 @ 3PM
WHERE FST's Keating Theatre
TICKETS $10 | BUY
OR Subscribe and see all three readings for as little as $15 | SUBSCRIBE
It can be hard to keep a show afloat. It’s even harder if you have to play all the parts, sing all the songs, and change all your wigs by yourself. Oh and the world might be ending. Todd is trying to get his show about the sinking of the Titanic out to sea, but it might just run aground if he can’t pull things together. Todd VS The Titanic brings Kellen Blair and Joe Kinosian (Murder for Two) back to FST with a new epic musical full of quirky humor and heartfelt songs about the light that is making art in dark times.
BLEEDING HEARTS
by Steve Yockey
WHEN Friday, May 5 @ 3PM
WHERE FST's Keating Theatre
TICKETS $10 | BUY
OR Subscribe and see all three readings for as little as $15 | SUBSCRIBE
Sloane and Timothy are your typical middle-class couple. Sure, they squabble, but their sex life is still adventurous. Timothy holds things together thanks to Xanax, and Sloane makes baked goods for church fundraisers. But when Timothy offers a homeless man a place to stay on a “do-gooder impulse,” Sloane can’t help but feel that things have gone a bit too far. While the homeless man settles in, and the couple continues to bicker, Felicia Reed Walker, a whirlwind of a neighbor with a big mouth and an even bigger pocketbook, keeps barging in and walking off with Sloane’s and Timothy’s stuff. Bleeding Hearts is a dark comedy about good intentions, negative consequences, and one middle class couple struggling not to completely fall apart.
Brent Askari (Advice) is a Persian-American writer and actor. He is the winner of the NNPN Smith Prize for Political Theater for his play The Refugees, which recently received a workshop and reading at Gulfshore Playhouse. Barrington Stage Company commissioned his play Andy Warhol In Iran, producing its world premiere in 2022; the play won Berkshire Theater Critics Award for Best New Play of the season. Northlight Theatre will be producing a second production of Andy Warhol In Iran in early 2023. Brent's other plays include American Underground (Runner-up winner Bonnie and Terry Burman New Play Award, produced at Barrington Stage Company 2019), Hard Cell (PlayPenn Conference 2017, produced at Geva Theatre Center in 2019), White Party (Semi-finalist for O’Neill Conference, Finalist Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Finalist Ashland New Plays Festival), Digby’s Home (Semi-finalist O’Neill Conference, produced at Mad Horse Theatre); Cocktails and Travails (Winner of Neil Simon Festival’s National New Play Contest and produced at The Theater Project); Bending Reeds (Semi-Finalist Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Blank Stage Living Room Series); Dirty Deeds Downeast (Finalist, B Street Theater New Comedies Festival). In addition, Brent has had plays produced at or developed by Ensemble Studio Theatre LA, Vital Theatre, The Boston Theatre Marathon, New American Theatre, The Drilling Company, Swarthmore College, Eastern Connecticut State University, and the College of Southern Nevada. Brent has also been a finalist for the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville’s Heideman Award and the Reva Shiner Comedy Award. He was part of HBO’s New Writers Project and has written screenplays for several companies including Paramount Pictures, Marvel Films, MTV, and Reveille Entertainment. He is an ensemble member of Mad Horse Theatre Company and an affiliate artist of NNPN (National New Play Network).
Scott Rothman (Todd VS The Titanic) is a a screenwriter who has sold screenplays to Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony, and New Line Cinema. A script he co-wrote, Draft Day, topped the 2012 Black List before its acquisition and subsequent production by Lionsgate/Summit as a feature film directed by Ivan Reitman and starring Kevin Costner. In addition, Rothman co-wrote the script for the comedy Army of One, starring Nicolas Cage and directed by Larry Charles. Scott’s humor writing has appeared in various publications including The New Yorker, GQ, Grantland and McSweeney’s. Scott's debut picture book The Attack of the Underwear Dragon, illustrated by NYT Best-Selling illustrator, Pete Oswald, was published October 2020 (Random House). Return of the Underwear Dragon was published in 2021. Scott has two other picture books coming soon, Parfait, Not Parfait by Roaring Brook Press (illustrated by Avery Monsen) and Mako & Tiger, again by Random House (illustrated by Mika Song).
Kellen Blair (Todd VS The Titanic) is the Drama Desk nominated co-creator of Murder For Two, the murder mystery musical comedy that ran for a year off-Broadway and has been touring internationally since 2014. The show earned Kellen (and co-writer Joe Kinosian) the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Musical Work in Chicago and the ASCAP Foundation Mary Rodgers / Lorenz Hart Award for their contribution to musical theatre. It Came From Outer Space (written with Joe Kinosian) premiered in 2022 at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. This new musical comedy is an adaptation of the Universal Film with a story by Ray Bradbury. Just Between the All of Us (written with Sarah Ziegler and David Christensen) premiered in 2021 at the Bloomington Playwrights Project. This immersive musical comedy was originally commissioned by Pittsburgh CLO and is the winner of the 2020 Reva Shiner Comedy Award. Kellen’s lyrics have been heard on Broadway stages (at the Theatre World Awards), at the Kennedy Center, and in theaters across the country. His other musical works include Scrooge in Love (available to license through Tams-Witmark), and Diane Steals the Show (being developed with Second Stage Theatre and the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center). In addition to writing for the theater, Kellen enjoys writing fiction and poetry. He teaches film and playwriting in New York City, where he lives with his wife and two sons.
Joe Kinosian (Todd VS The Titanic) worked as an art department assistant for TV shows and rehearsal accompanist on the original Broadway The Color Purple before getting a taste of writing and composing. Murder For Two, co-written with Kellen Blair, won the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Musical in its world premiere production at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and Joe was nominated for Best Leading Actor. Murder For Two's New York production was nominated for Drama Desk, Drama League, and Outer Critics Circle Awards too. Murder For Two has played across the country and around the world, and Joe has performed the role(s) of The Suspects over 700 times. Joe & Kellen's work has been performed at Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, and on Broadway at the Theatre World Awards. Their newest show, It Came From Outer Space, had successful runs at Chicago Shakespeare Theater and TheatreSquared in summer 2022, with new productions in the works. Joe also wrote two children's musicals for TheaterWorksUSA with Marcus Stevens: Dragons Love Tacos (based on the bestselling book) and Live & Let Spy, which Joe also directed in its original filmed production. As an actor, Joe has performed in Two Pianos, Four Hands, An Act of God, Dirty Blonde, and (a lifelong dream for Joe) the title role in The Nerd. Currently, Joe's at work on several new projects, including Todd VS The Titanic, a one-man musical co-written with Kellen and screenwriter Scott Rothman that Joe's also performing in, a new musical vehicle for superstar Kristin Chenoweth, and some fun stuff in the world of TV and film, the future of which is – like everything else in this world – yet to be determined.
Steve Yockey (Bleeding Hearts) is a Los Angeles-based writer with work produced throughout the US, Europe, and Asia. His plays Afterlife, Octopus, Large Animal Games, CARTOON, Subculture, Very Still & Hard to See, The Fisherman’s Wife, Wolves, Disassembly, and Niagara Falls & Other Plays are published and available from Samuel French. Additionally, his play Joshua Consumed an Unfortunate Pear was included in the 2015 Humana Festival of New American Plays and the subsequent published anthology. This season, Steve’s new play Blackberry Winter will open as a National New Play Network rolling world premiere at Salt Lake Acting Company, Actor’s Express, Out of Hand, Capital Stage, New Rep, Forum Theatre, Oregon Contemporary Theatre, and Kitchen Dog. Actor’s Express and Kitchen Dog will also join Custom Made Theatre in producing The Thrush & The Woodpecker this season. He was one of two writers selected for the first US/Australia playwright exchange in February 2013, taking his play Pluto to NIDA in Sydney, NSW and the National Australian Play Festival in Perth, Western Australia. This exchange was sponsored by NNPN and Playwriting Australia. He is also the recipient of the inaugural LA Weekly Playwriting Award in 2013 for his ghost story Very Still & Hard to See. Steve is a Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of Georgia and holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He currently contributes issues to the Zenescope comic book series Grimm Tales of Terror and writes for MTV’s Scream and CW’s Supernatural.