The South Carolina New Play Festival will return to Greenville July 29-Aug. 9 for its fifth anniversary, bringing with it new additions and old favorites.
This year’s headliners include international acrobat, ballerina and juggler Christina Gelsone, and Drew Gehling. Gehling is currently portraying Shakespeare in “& Juliet” on Broadway, but cut his teeth in the Broadway production of “Jersey Boys” as Bob Gaudio.
The festival will also feature its first full production – “The House That I Live In: Josh White’s America.” The nonprofit festival commissioned the play written by Donnetta Lavinia Grays, a Columbia-based playwright. The play tells the story of Josh White, a 1930s- and 1940s-era musician and Civil Rights activist from Greenville.
SCNPF developed the production over the past three years, taking interviews with Grays, White’s family, including Josh White Jr., and local scholars like Ruth Ann Butler, Mary Duckett and Josh White Jr. Auditions for the production will take place in May. The production will detail White’s rise to prominence beginning in the Upstate and taking him to New York City’s club scene, Broadway and Hollywood.
Gehling will perform in the Broadway Cabaret taking place in a historic spiegeltent, The Cristal Palace. The spiegeltent will be provided by West Coast Spiegeltents and will be set up on the lawn at New Realm Brewing. Spiegeltents were created in Belgium in the early 1900s. The word translates to “mirror tent” in Flemish and is built with mirrors in the interior of the tent.
The production of “The House That I Live In” will also take place in the spiegeltent.
The festival was founded in 2022 and takes place at various locations around downtown. The festival will shut down Main Street Aug. 8 for Spinx Market Live Arts Fair, presenting a new late-night variety show headlined by Gelsone beginning at 9:30 p.m.
Four other plays are still to be announced, two of which will take place at the Greenville Theatre and another at Warehouse Theatre. One play’s location is still to be determined.
This year will also see the return of South Carolina’s Next Broadway Star Scholarship Contest, a scholarship opportunity the nonprofit announced last year. The contest gives an opportunity to local middle and high school musical theater students to perform for industry professionals and awards of $5,000 (first place), $2,500 (second), and $1,000 (third).
Students can audition by video. The field will be narrowed to 50 participants, then 12, then the top three. Auditions can be submitted to southcarolinanewplayfestival.org/scholarshipcontest.
Tickets for all three shows are available now at southcarolinanewplayfestival.org.
