Cincinnati Playwrights Initiative’s New Voices Series returns with a vibrant, thought‑provoking season of new works! Five staged readings for just $45! This year’s lineup explores resilience, life-changing choices, family mysteries, unexpected connections, and moral dilemmas that ripple across relationships and ambitions. From heartfelt humor to gripping introspection, each play offers fresh perspectives on hope, identity, and what might have been. Don’t miss this dynamic celebration of bold storytelling and emerging voices!
Following each performance, we invite you to stay for live audience talkbacks, offering the opportunity to share feedback and directly support the playwrights as they continue developing their scripts.
The Opposite of Failure: A Full-Length Play by Nancy Robinson Crist
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
Martie has struggled to rebuild her life after her thirty-year marriage ended, facing chronic depression and unsuccessful treatments. Just as she begins to lose hope, an unexpected circle of people helps her realize that healing means both helping herself and accepting support from others.
What Might Have Been: A Full-Length Drama by Leo Bradley
Tuesday, October 20, 2026
What Might Have Been follows the trials and tribulations, successes and failures, happiness and sadness, of two men, one who follows a safe and conventional life and one who takes a riskier, more unconventional one.
An Evening of One Acts: by Paul Bergman & Jon Singer
Tuesday, November 17, 2026
Who Gets Grandma’s Eyeball: A One-Act Play by Paul Bergman
Fun and the unexpected collide in this one-act play featuring a lucky, lurking eyeball and Grandma Maissey’s estate riddle. After her passing, the family must unravel the mystery—facing each twist with “a wink and a prayer” and a heartfelt sense of care.
Waiting Room Commerce: A One-Act Play by Jon Singer
Two patients awaiting knee replacement surgery strike up a friendly conversation, bonding over sports and a shared spirit while in the holding area. But when they’re called in, their easy connection gives way to tension, anger, and distrust.
Arc of Luminescence: A Full-Length Play by Michael Defrancesco
Tuesday, March 30, 2027
An artist/painter dies. His European collector, executor, and live-in meet in NYC. The live-in reveals a private notebook in a locked desk the painter has shared with no one. Its contents unleash a cascade of moral challenges and destructive events.
Behind the Scene: A Full-Length Comedy by Susan and Doug Decatur
Tuesday, April 27, 2027
In 1933, as new movie censorship standards loom, Helen dreams of stardom while running a lodge with her boyfriend, George. When a Hollywood crew arrives to film their first “talkie,” ambition, romance, and redemption intertwine as things go both right and wrong.
