Looking Back on New Play Festival 2026
The Old Pueblo Playwrights organization provides a venue where playwrights can bring their works for a candid review as a play or screenplay by their peers. For 36 years, OPP has provided an annual four-day play festival inviting local actors, directors, and technicians to help perform these works so that a playwright has the real-life experience of mounting a play, conducting auditions, assembling their cast and crew, rehearsals, working with costuming and sets, and performing before a live audience for the first time.
The New Play Festival 2026 was held April 2-5 at The Invisible Theater in Tucson! 1400 N 1st Ave, Tucson, AZ 85719
2026 new plays
HOA Blues by Debra Vassalo
Characters:
ALEXIS Elvia Bow
CARL Dave Cavallero
SAVANNAH Roseann Couston
PHILIPPA Kay Ewy
TIM Joe Smith
PEACE LILY Rob Sanders, Plant Wrangler
Director Dennis O’Dell
Facilitator Liisa Rose
Synopsis: The Sparkling Springs HOA’s streets are falling apart, and they’ve got to act quickly. But, they only have $77.13 in their deferred maintenance fund. Even the executive board can’t agree on what to do. Now a hedge fund wants to buy the Sparkling Springs HOA and tear it down to build a high rise for luxury condos! What is the HOA executive board to do? Will they be able to keep their homes?
Don't Feed the Troll by Adrian Cory
The Characters/Actors:
AMY: freelance feminist columnist for a national newspaper / Meagan Jones
DAN: Amy’s husband / Drew Kallen-Keck
NAOMI: Amy’s newspaper editor / Courtney Pulitzer
ANON: the male troll / Tristan McCrocklin
MELON: the CEO of Y? / Chad Eggen
LIV: senior programmer at Y? / Kira McNeill
MALE CUSTOMER & PRISON GUARD: Mattie Klass
Facilitator: Steve Duson
Synopsis:
Amy is an intersectional feminist who begins to attract online abuse when she broadens her writing career as an op-ed columnist. While Amy accepts trolling as a necessary evil in her line of work, her world spirals out of control soon after her husband becomes a victim of doxxing. In Amy’s pursuit of the troll terrorizing her, she seeks help from an employee of Y? – a social media platform whose anti-woke owner is all about the first amendment. Can Amy draw the troll out from under his bridge and appeal to him to stop his onslaught or will the online threats break out into a real-world calamity?
THE CHEMO LOUNGE By John Vornholt
DIRECTOR - Stan Sutherland
Characters/Actors:
TERRIE - Meagan Jones
BILLY - Joe Smith
CRYSTAL - Robin Mirlocca
SHELLY - Stephanie Sikes
DR. SARNOFF - Adrian Cory
HANK/COLIN - Eric Everts
Synopsis:
The Infusion Center of a cancer clinic is where people of all ages and all walks of life meet for hours everyday, often sharing a bit too much about the demons, dangers, and decisions they face. Whoever they are in the outside world, they are equals, fighting the same war, in the Chemo Lounge.
AIAIO By Mel Hector
DIRECTOR - Stan Sutherland
Characters/Actors:
Ethel Volk - Computer scientist, entrepreneur nearing the end of her career - Halsy Taylor
Herbert Volk - Computer scientist, entrepreneur nearing the end of his career - Jeff Webster
AI Herb – The virtual persona created by Edna and Herb - Jeff Webster
Stephen Holt - Ethel and Herbert’s son-in-law - Joe Smith
Margo Holt - Ethel and Herbert’s daughter - Ellie Vaught
Melody Barker – Margo’s lawyer and friend- Meagan Jones
Carol Singer – Stephen’s friend - Hannah Taylor
Detective Carbona – An enforcer - Kevin Chess
AI Surprise – Bonus ?
Director – Zach Wetzel
Facilitator – John Vornholt
Synopsis:
AIAIO asks whose intelligence is the more artificial, what’s the impact of artificial intelligence on ethical choices, and can one create and implement meaningful safeguards.
SHort PLAYS
"What a Trip" by Leslie Powell (10 min)
Characters/Actors:
Sydney Flynn as Rita Clark
Kim Lowry as Louise Clark
Steve Waite as Federal Agent Darling.
Director Dave Sewell
Facilitator Gavin Kayner
Synopsis:
Two sisters tangle with a Federal Agent and learn to see each other as never before, comedy ensues.
"Change" by Leslie Powell (10 min)
Characters/Actors:
Sydney Flynn as Young They
Kim Lowry as Old They
Man TBA
Director Pat Timm
Facilitator Gavin Kayner
Synopsis: In a world of the haves and have nots three characters are trapped underground to learn lesson of late-staged capitalism and the dangers of disconnection from basic humanity.
"Clutch" by Liisa Rose
Characters/Actors:
David Sewell directs Roark Polzin (CHRISTOF) and Petra Polzin (JULIA); Leslie Powell facilitates.
Synopsis: Gunshots, watermelon, a Mallard duck. A pair of siblings deal with their shared childhood trauma in different ways.
meet the 2026 playwrights
Debra Vassallo
Debra Vassallo
Debra Vassallo
Debra Vassallo studied playwriting at Portland Center Stage and has written five plays. Her first play, Prima Donna, was a finalist in the 2022 American Association of Community Theatre’s New Play Fest. Nana and Paige, her second play was presented in the 2021 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and is now a published play. Her third play, Ready, Set, Go, is also a published play and appeared in the 2023 OPP New Play Festival. Gathering the Flock was presented at 21TenTheatre in Portland, Oregon, in April of 2024. She is grateful to the talented members of the Old Pueblo Playwrights from whom she has learned so much. She thanks her husband for his invaluable encouragement and support.
Mel Hector
Debra Vassallo
Debra Vassallo
John Vornholt
Debra Vassallo
John Vornholt
JOHN VORNHOLT is the author of over 65 published books, most of them science fiction, fantasy and young adult, including 33 Star Trek novels. While living in Los Angeles, he had several plays produced and even more in Tucson, where he often performs in children's theater. He's president of Old Pueblo Playwrights all but two of the last dozen years, and he and his family have lived in Tucson since 1992.
Adrian Cory
Leslie Powell
John Vornholt
Adrian has had several plays produced for both stage and radio including Social Outcast (Canal Café Theatre, London), The Knight of Malta (Manhattan Repertory Theatre, NYC), and Terror on Edge Island (Narada Radio Company). Adrian is a UK ex-pat who has been engaged with Tucson’s theatrical community since moving from Seattle two years ago. An active member of the Old Pueblo’s Playwright group, Adrian also played Father Benito in Borderlands Theatre’s recent production of Claudia’s Family.
Leslie Powell
Leslie Powell
Leslie Powell
Leslie Powell (she/her/hers) studied playwriting at the Kennedy Center Master threartical workshops, Boston Playwrights Theatre, and Last Frontier Theatre Conference among others. Her plays have been read and produced across the country and in Toronto, Canada. Most recently “Crossroads” presented in last year’s New Play Festival was produced at AmaZing Theatre in Sandy Spring, Maryland. A production of "Change" is forthcoming in August 2026 as part of Bridges and Stages 10-minute Play Festival in Pittsburg, PA. Ms. Powell is thankful to her cast, directors, and Old Pueblo Playwrights for keeping the New Play Festival alive. And a special thanks to Invisible Theatre for sharing their stage! She is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild. And most grateful to her novelist partner Ron Pullins for his love and support.
Liisa Rose
Leslie Powell
Leslie Powell
Liisa Rose is a member of The Dramatists Guild, holds an MA in theatre education from the University of Arizona and an MFA in playwriting from SNHU where she also teaches. Her plays have been developed through readings with Old Pueblo Playwrights, and Carport Theatre in Tucson, AZ, Fusion Theatre in Albuquerque, NM, The A-Chronicles, in Westport, CT, and most recently with Returning Soldiers Speak, in North Hollywood, CA. As an Air Force spouse, Liisa has performed on stages from Tucson to Misawa, Japan, taught kindergarten to college theatre classes, and served as the executive director of a community theatre in South Carolina. Liisa lives in Tucson, AZ with her husband and their four-legged children.
Kristen Kallen-Keck
Kristen Kallen-Keck
Kristen Kallen-Keck
A Look Back on the 2025 festival!
