Festival Dates: Jan 26-28 & Feb 2-4, 2024

Chapel Theatre is a small theatre with simple goals: Bring together community, advance local artists, and engage the public in the arts. Milwaukie doesn’t have a lot of live performance available year round; Chapel Theatre offers ongoing artistic engagement for people in Milwaukie and beyond. This play festival works with artists to produce their work, practice performing on stage, direct for the first time, or meet others in the industry they may want to work with in the future. The audience has the opportunity to see new work, meet new artists, and travel to Milwaukie to see these productions.

This play festival showcases writers and their short plays by matching them up with local directors and actors to carry out their work. Playwrights submit their short plays to be considered while local directors and actors audition to take part in the festival. Chapel Theatre Co connects the plays with actors and directors and allows two weeks to rehearse before presenting the finished product.

This year’s lineup:

Friday, Jan 26 @7:30pm
Sunday, Jan 28 @2pm
Saturday, Feb 3 @7:30pm

• Hellscape, written by Mishelle Apalategui
• Twisted, written by Lolly Ward
• Toast, written by Nannette Gatchel
• New Light, written by James Van Eaton
• The Third Place, written by Niels Truman

Saturday, Jan 27 @7:30pm
Friday, Feb 2 @7:30pm
Sunday, Feb 4 @2pm

• Coyote Play (Winter Stories), written by Ki Ridenour-Starnes
• Olivia: Twelve Nights Later, written by Brianna Barrett
• The Wedding Grift, written by Kate Herrell
• Danny and Rose, written by Michael Kurt
• Camping Trip, written by Emilie Weidlich

• • May I apply in multiple categories? YES. You may apply for more than one of the categories, for example, you may submit a play you wrote and also apply to be an actor.

• • What availability do I need for shows? The show dates are set in stone (see timeline above). If you are applying as an actor, these dates must be available- however, each play will run one or two times each weekend, so if you have a conflict on one of the weekend dates, we can try and accommodate that. If you are applying as a director or playwright, you do not necessarily need to be available, though we’d love for you to see your play in action!

• • What availability do I need for rehearsals? Once all shows are matched with directors and actors, you will create a rehearsal schedule as a team. On average, each team rehearsed around 5-6 times before tech week, so plan to have at least that many days together.

• • What does it cost/pay? This festival does not have a cost to participate, nor does it pay participants. All participants may attend all shows for free, even if they are not performing/represented on that show date. We do charge for attendees to see the performances.

• • How many plays are typically submitted and how do you choose plays to produce? Last year we received 52 play submissions and have to narrow it down to just 10. We look at factors such as: Feasibility to produce on stage with a small budget, amount of actors needed (please keep it to 2-3 actors), length of play (please submit plays that are around 10 minutes), and variety (we try to mix up genres and themes for production purposes).