The 2025 Play Festival Finalists. From Left to Right: Dominic Finocchiaro, Gloria Majule, Dave Osmundsen and Dacyl Acevedo.
(UNION, NJ) -- Premiere Stages, the professional theatre company in residence at Kean University, has selected its four finalists for the 2025 Premiere Play Festival. Now in its 20th year, the Festival is an annual competition for unproduced scripts that offers developmental opportunities to playwrights with strong affiliations to New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Delaware. This year's finalists were selected from 805 submissions.
This year’s finalists are: Lia Del Mar by Dacyl Acevedo, a member of Dramatic Question Theatre, who is currently working with Latinx Playwrights' Circle; angel’s share by Dominic Finocchiaro, a three-time MacDowell Fellow, and Marble House and Ucross Fellow; Mala Aria by Gloria Majule, who has been awarded a MacDowell Fellowship and commissions by Audible and Atlantic Theater Company; and My Brother Jake by Dave Osmundsen, a recipient of the Blank Theatre and Ucross Foundation’s inaugural Future of Playwriting Prize.
In Lia Del Mar, two generations of Afro-Mexican women do their best to make ends meet in the Costa Chica region of Mexico. Dalia faces pressure to sell her family’s land, Luisa loses her spot to sell food, and Yolanda tries to keep the restaurant Lia Del Mar afloat. As Luisa’s and Yolanda’s daughters navigate new ways to make money, the older generation must find a way to reconcile a longstanding feud in order to provide for their futures.
In angel’s share, mom and dad’s son has died. His name was steve. With a tiny implant, the boundary between steve and another teenager named stephen could begin to dissolve. But what’s lost along the way? Is a person more than just their memories? A speculative fiction exploration of grief, love and family.
In Mala Aria, Amazia leaves her family in Tanzania to pursue a PhD abroad, hoping to discover how to eradicate Malaria. An unforeseen turn of events puts her in a position where she has to decide between staying in the West and going back home to finish what she started.
In My Brother Jake, Jake Barnsley, Autistic theatre artist, has an “inspiring” career. Ethan, his higher-needs twin brother, lives in his shadow. When Jake's life and livelihood starts to crack, Ethan makes an impassioned bid for agency.
All finalists will receive professional readings, as part of Premiere’s 20th annual Play Festival Finalists Reading Series June 19-22 at the Bauer Boucher Theatre Center and will be considered for expanded development in Premiere’s mainstage season. One of the four plays will be selected for an Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) 29-Hour Reading in November 2025, and the most promising play will be awarded a full AEA production as part of Premiere's 2026 season. All finalists receive cash awards ranging from $1,000 to $3,000. Readings are offered by invitation only. To request admission to any of the readings, please email premiere@kean.edu
This year’s submissions were evaluated through a process coordinated by Premiere Stages’ Managing Director Nick Gandiello, Literary Associate Emily Dzioba and Literary Assistant Jessica DeLuca, in partnership with esteemed panelists Ashley Nicole Baptiste, Eddie Gouveia Blackman, William Eddy, José Fernando González-Vidal, Claudia Nolan, Scott Organ, Benjamin V. Marshall, Lysna Marzani, and Carole Shaffer-Koros.
In the twenty seasons since its founding, the Premiere Play Festival has received over 8,800 submissions and developed more than 100 plays. Multiple plays produced at Premiere have been honored by the American Theatre Critics Association, selected for agency representation, and/or been published by Theatrical Rights Worldwide, Concord, Dramatists Play Service, Dramatic Publishing Company, Playscripts, and Broadway Play Publishing. A number of Play Festival winners and finalists have subsequently been produced in New York, internationally and at regional theatres across the country.
Premiere Stages is made possible in part through funding from W. John Bauer and Nancy Boucher, The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The Shubert Foundation, Carole Shaffer-Koros and Robert Koros and ExxonMobil Foundation, The Northfield Bank Foundation, Blue Foundry Charitable Foundation, Union County Savings Bank Charitable Foundation, The Hyde and Watson Foundation, The Union Foundation, E.J. Grassmann Trust, The New Jersey Theatre Alliance, The Union County HEART Grant and through the generous support of individual patrons and local organizations. Discover Jersey Arts is their marketing partner. Visit JerseyArts.com for more information about other arts programming happening around the Garden State.
Premiere Stages is committed to producing topical plays and interactive programs that reflect people of all ethnic and racial backgrounds, national origins, nationalities, ancestry, religious groups, gender expression or identities, sexual orientation, political beliefs, ages, abilities and disabilities.
Created in 2004, Premiere Stages is the professional Equity theatre in residence at Kean University. Through its unique partnership with Kean, Premiere’s play development programs, educational initiatives, and professional development opportunities actively embrace the university's academic curriculum while expanding the scope, accessibility, and prestige of the professional programming on campus.
Kean University, New Jersey’s urban research university, is a national institution of higher education recognized for its diversity, innovation and the social mobility of its graduates. Designated an R2 research university by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, Kean ranks among the top eight percent of U.S. universities for research and doctorate production. Founded in 1855 as a teachers college, Kean has evolved into a thriving research university that supports students as they persist to graduation, give back to their communities and launch successful careers. Kean’s six colleges offer more than 50 undergraduate programs, six doctoral degree programs and more than 70 options leading to master’s degrees, professional diplomas or certifications, across a full range of academic subjects. With campuses in Union, Toms River and Manahawkin, New Jersey, and Wenzhou, China, as well as Kean Online, the University provides students of all backgrounds an affordable and accessible world-class education.
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