DENVER: Denver Center for the Performing Arts Theatre Company has announced the selected playwrights for the 2018 Colorado New Play Summit. The 13th annual festival will feature readings of new works by Sigrid Gilmer, David Jacobi, Kemp Powers, and Barbara Seyda alongside world premiere productions by José Cruz González, Matthew Lopez, and Lauren Yee. The festival will take place over two weekends, Feb. 17-18, 2018 and Feb. 23-25, 2018.

The selected plays are:

• A reading of Mama Metallica by Gilmer, the story of a budding playwright working to find her voice
• The world premiere of American Mariachi by González, about two females starting their own mariachi band
• A reading of The Couches by Jacobi, about a man’s escape to Mexico after he is convicted of killing four people
• The world premiere of Zoey’s Perfect Wedding by Lopez, a comedy about a disastrous wedding
• A reading of Christa McAuliffe’s Eyes Were Blue by Powers, which details the lives of twins Steven and Bernard who live totally different lives because of the appearance of their skin
• A reading of Celia, A Slave by Barbara Seyda, about a slave who is convicted of killing her master and hanged
• The world premiere of The Great Leap by Lauren Yee, which depicts an American college basketball team traveling to Beijing in 1989. This production is produced in association with Seattle Repertory Theatre

The Colorado New Play Summit is DCPA’s dedication to supporting playwrights and developing new work. Since the festival’s beginning, the Summit has introduced 53 new plays, and more than half have returned to the DCPA Theatre Company stage as full productions. Recent world premieres at the festival include Lauren Gunderson’s The Book of Will, Theresa Rebeck’s The Nest, Marcus Gardley’s black odyssey, Karen Zacarias’s Just Like Us, and Jeffrey Haddow and Neal Hampton’s Sense and Sensibility The Musical.

 The festival is sponsored by producing partners Sheri and Lee Archer/New Wave Enviro. It is also supported by the Shubert Foundation.