Tennessee Playwrights Studio (TPS) is pleased to announce the TPS 2025 Virtual Reading Festival, May 15, 17, 29, 30, and 31 at 7:00 p.m. CST. Tickets are free, and the festival is open to the public. The 2024 TPS Fellows, who were selected through a competitive process, have been writing and workshopping these five plays on a monthly basis throughout 2024, and the resulting scripts will receive their first public performance via this virtual festival, which features some of Nashville’s finest actors and directors. Each reading will be followed by a talk-back led by previous TPS Fellows. This festival is sponsored by a Thrive grant through Metro Arts.
To learn more and to register for free admission/zoom link for readings, visit tnplaywrights.org
The plays in the line-up include:
CINDY’S COMPLEX by Tijuana Karma
Directed by Dee Hammonds
May 16, 2025
7:00 p.m. CST
Synopsis: Two college friends reunite over a weekend to reconnect. They discover they lead very different lives and tempers flare when life altering secrets are revealed.
Cast: Janelle Brooks, Jack E. Chambers, Ellie Hammonds, Leslie Hammonds, Shanté King, and Patricyonna Rodgers
Tijuana Karma is from West Tennessee and grew up doing theatre. She has been in plays such as the Glass Menagerie and Macbeth and is returning to theatre after a long absence. She is currently studying for a minor in theatre and ETSU and teaches high school English/Theatre Arts.
SUICIDE PACT by Melissa McKnight
Directed by Sabrine Birdine-Moore
May 17, 2025
7:00 p.m. CST
Synopsis: In this dark comedy two millennial college friends pledge to end their lives together when they’re 67 if things on Earth keep getting worse. 40 years later, terrifying predictions realized, they reunite during a hurricane with new ideas on what makes life worth living.
Cast: Ken Bernstein, Addy Biggers, Kale Buckman, Lindsey Carroll, Edith Costanza, Christan Riley
Melissa McKnight is a playwright living in Memphis whose work explores metamodernist views of class and gender. Her interest in theater manifested after a few acting roles and improv classes in Nashville. Since graduating as a Human Relations major from The University of Oklahoma in 2010 she has worked as a Backup Singer, sang in an award winning Sweet Adelines Show Chorus, and worked as an Organizer on Barack Obama’s incumbent Campaign in 2012. She began performing as a Standup Comedian eight years ago and hosted The Moth storySLAM in Nashville from May 2019-December 2020. Her latest gigs were as a principal performer in a few Vicks Vapor Rub commercials, and she grew an entire human in 2023.
THE CURSED TRUTH by MJ (Myah Jackson)
Directed by Jon Royal
May 29, 2025
7:00 p.m. CST
Synopsis: This is a story that explores the complex truths about sanity in our modern world. At a secret government black site facility, Patience, is stuck in heartbreak hotel and working overtime with high level criminals when her ex, Kaleb, suddenly reappears in her life. Kaleb and his sister, Destiny, take the psych ward (and everyone in it) hostage to steal back sanity that has been stolen from them. They convince Patience to work with them to discover the truth about the facility and the patients inside. They build and rebuild unlikely connections in a hopeless place, shifting their perspectives as they gain clarity about the stolen sanity. Then organize a plan and join forces to get it back. Ultimately, they find that the truth is more complicated than any amount of sanity could cure.
Cast: Briana Celeste, Jaylan Downes, Reischa Harrell, Ana Maria Harvey, Tony Insignares, Josh Kiev, Jin Kohanski, Sabrina Lynne Sawyer, Nikkita Staggs, Gillion Welsh
MJ (Myah Jackson) is a writer, actor, dancer, and singer from Chicago, IL where she has been performing ever since she was 3 years old. She is currently a graduating MBA student at Tennessee State University, where she also received her BA in English with a History minor and BS in and Communications with a Theatre Performance focus. She discovered her love for writing at a young age and has continued to cultivate her storytelling voice and styles ever since! She began working in Nashville in 2019 with Sistastyle Productions performing as Tracy Ada in STEAL AWAY and continues to be active in Nashville’s theater community. She directed and co-produced her first show with Verge Theater Company as their featured collegiate playwright for Black Future month in 2022 with her original play CHANCE. Her poetry was also featured in the Orlando Museum of Art and Black Girl Theatre Magic’s Onija event in 2019 and her piece BEFORE THE SUNRISE won Best in Show. She works with love, not against hate, and the power of storytelling to heal and expand community in this world. MJ is so excited to explore her new ideas and expand her writing skills with the Tennessee Playwrights Studio Fellowship program in 2024 and can’t wait to bring this very special project to life.
ROBERTA AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POOL by Allison Page
Directed by Josh Inocalla
May 30, 2025
7:00 p.m. CST
Synopsis: Roberta died at the bottom of the pool 20 years ago. Now, her three children are reuniting for Christmas after many strained years apart. One believes their father is a murderer, one believes he’s innocent, and one refuses to choose a side. Holiday festivities quickly come unglued when one of the siblings changes into their mother’s clothes and insists the three of them reenact the night of her death: wigs, costumes, and all, to finally determine what really happened to Roberta — and who’s responsible.
Cast: Jarvis Bynum, Jack E. Chambers, Marissa Hoisington, Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva
Allison Page is a nationally produced and published playwright & comedy writer living in Nashville, by way of San Francisco and rural Minnesota. She generally writes about monsters, some with scales or fur, and some who look like your aunt. She has written: THE PYRAMID, a comedy about a group of high schoolers who start a dangerous wellness cult, HELLHOUND, a comedy about six teens chased along the River Styx by a three-headed dog, THE SON OF SAM IS IN THE BATHROOM AT THE DRUNKEN HORSE, a comedy about three young New Jersey women who narrowly escape an encounter with a serial killer and get a plate of cannoli — and many others. Her pilot script, BEWARE THE JABBERWOCK, about the importance of free knowledge and libraries, was a semifinalist in the 2023 Nashville Film Festival Screenwriting Competition and a quarterfinalist in the Final Draft Big Break Screenwriting Contest. She spent eight years as the Artistic Director of San Francisco’s largest sketch comedy company, Killing My Lobster, where she also wrote and performed for over a decade. You can find some of her scripts at newplayexchange.org/users/3403/allison-page, and find her very niche, very goofy rural Minnesota stories at https://allisonpage.substack.com.
GENDERFUCK BATHROOM STUFF by Natalie P. Wright
Directed by Jessika Malone
May 31, 2025
7:00 p.m. CST
Synopsis: Best friends Ricky and Lucy (not ~that~ Ricky and Lucy) protest outside a courthouse restroom to oppose discriminatory bathroom bans. Their small protest grows in size but struggles to stay afloat amid conflicting opinions and personalities. In this political dramedy, the group must work together to protect their rights, their relationships, and, perhaps most importantly, their hope for the future.
Cast: Wren Adaro, Dee Benn, Angela Gimlin, JJ Lee, Emmett Rector, Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva
Natalie P. Wright was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. She first fell in love with the theatre wearing a pillowcase as a dress in a first-grade production of ANNIE. She is currently a student at Vanderbilt University studying psychology, theatre, and creative writing. Her short play WWI ESSAY SHITTY FIRST DRAFT was selected for a staged reading as part of Vanderbilt University Theatre’s New Play Fest (2023). Natalie wrote, directed, and produced the full-length play ENTER MACBETH with Vanderbilt University’s Iceberg Theatre Company in October of 2023. She is currently serving as the president of both Vanderbilt University Theatre and Iceberg Theatre Company.
About Tennessee Playwrights Studio
TPS is a playwright-development lab and theatre-production company, directed by Molly Breen, which was founded in 2018 by Breen and Kenley Smith to offer in-state playwrights the opportunity to develop fresh, incisive scripts that reflect a changing world. In 2019, TPS broadened its scope to include the production of theatre projects developed in Tennessee, and has produced seven original and critically acclaimed works thus far, including: MAIDENS, THAT WOMAN – THE MONOLOGUE SHOW, THAT WOMAN – THE DANCE SHOW, DON’T LOOK BLACK, THE SINS OF THE CITY, FAN ME WITH A BRICK, and ONLYFAM.
