4th Annual PlayLab

Florida Repertory Theatre is committed to nurturing new plays and playwrights in its PlayLab Festival. Chosen from over 75 submissions, these six plays and playwrights will enjoy an intensive weekend of workshopping, discussion, and development with a cast of professional actors and directors in a creative laboratory setting. Each play will have a reading and a talkback with Florida Rep audiences and staff. Book now and join the development process.

THE FLOWER ROOM By Daryl Lisa Fazio
Fri, April 28 | 2pm

SYNOPSIS

Ingrid, an uptight and unwittingly alluring anthropologist of primitive sexual behavior, has apparently done a terrible job of distinguishing who she is from what she teaches. When a slew of students at her college call foul and cry wolf, Ingrid finds herself jobless, paralyzed by embarrassment, and without a compass. Then her geeky, closeted brother and her hunky former student suggest a new career writing erotica. And even while Ingrid’s stunted sexuality tries to stay hidden, her beating heart is clawing its way out. A play about keeping up appearances, flipping expectations, and letting go. And sex.

LOVE, THE CRACKSMAN By Mark Brown
Thurs, April 27 | 8pm

SYNOPSIS

Jimmy Pitts, an independently wealthy bachelor, falls in love with Molly McEachern, who he sees on an ocean liner, but assumes he’ll never see her again. After seeing a friend star as a gentleman thief in a Broadway play, Jimmy makes a bet that he can break into a house. He befriends a three-bit burglar named Spike, who is convinced Jimmy is an international thief. Together they break into a police captain’s house and discover the captain is Molly’s father. Jimmy loses track of her again and spends a year in New York City looking for Molly, all the while bold and sensational burglaries are plaguing the city.

In an attempt to escape his disappointment of not finding Molly, Jimmy moves to England, where he not only runs into Spike but also Molly. The three of them end up for a weekend party at Dreever castle, where Molly is to become engaged to the spineless Lord Dreever, who wants to marry someone else. Molly falls in love with Jimmy. Molly’s father wants her to marry Lord Dreever. Sir Thomas, Lord Dreever’s uncle is convinced someone is going to steal his wife’s $100,000 necklace so he hires a private detective to watch all of the guests. Jimmy tries to stop Spike from stealing anything from the castle. Molly’s father is convinced Jimmy is up to no good. Spike believes Molly’s father made a fortune by being a crooked cop.  The necklace is stolen and everyone has a motive. And is Jimmy telling the truth about not being an international thief?

SMOKE By Gloria Bond Clunie
Fri, April 28 | 8pm

SYNOPSIS

It’s the 1960’s! Camels are Kool and tobacco is king in Carolina! When country store owner Ora Rakestraw meets the mysterious union organizer Wallace Johnson – love, promises and secrets collide with small town southern politics in one sizzling, tumultuous summer! They challenge us to wonder – in both love and politics – “Why do we crave what might destroy us?” “Something’s gotta kill ya, and everybody’s got their own brand of cigarettes.”~Ora, SMOKE by Gloria Bond Clunie

WE WILL NOT BE SILENT By David Meyers
Sun, April 30 | 2pm

SYNOPSIS

We Will Not Be Silent tells the true story of Sophie Scholl, a German college student who led the only act of public resistance to the Nazis during the Second World War. The play is not about the Holocaust – but examines the role that ordinary Germans played in the rise of Hitler. At a time when fascism is resurgent in Europe and across the world, “We Will Not Be Silent” examines the moral strength and clarity that led a group of German students to risk their lives for a righteous, but hopeless, cause.

GEORGE WASHINGTON’S TEETH By Mark St. Germain
Sun, April 30 | 5:30pm

SYNOPSIS

The New Bunion Historical Society needs members as desperately a new attraction to lure visitors. When a set of George Washington’s Teeth is discovered, the Society goes to war to possess them in the chaos of the annual Fourth of July Battle of New Bunion reenactment. From the Author of BEST OF ENEMIES!

DAMASCUS By Bennett Fisher
Sat, April 29 | 1pm

SYNOPSIS

There’s an explosion at the Minneapolis airport. Everyone is on high alert. With all the planes grounded, a stranded teenager pleads with a Somali-American Super Shuttle driver to drive him to Chicago so he can get home. As the two men cross the Midwest in the dead of winter, they discover that not everything is what it seems. Damascus investigates the seductiveness of extremism, the fine line between caution and paranoia, and the assumptions we make about homeland and security.