For the fourth year in a row, the Ivoryton Playhouse will host the annual Women Playwrights Initiative, on Saturday, Feb. 22. This initiative promises once again to be an entertaining and enlightening look into new female playwrighting talent.

Ivoryton Playhouse Managing Director Krista May said that the hope is to transform the experience into more of an all-day festival vibe this year. In past years, the playhouse held two of the four, one-act plays staged readings on a Friday night and the other two on the Saturday night.

“There will be two plays in the afternoon at 2 p.m. and two plays in the evening at 7 p.m. We have partnered with local restaurants who will be having specials and discounts throughout the day, so we are hoping that people stay in the local area, get a bit to eat, attend the moderated talk and panel discussion, which will be held at the Ivoryton Library, entitled ‘Talk Inside Playwriting’ and get to know the playwrights,” May said.

“We are very excited about the finalists we have chosen,” said May. “We had over 170 plays submitted from all over the country.”

The four finalists will come to Ivoryton from Washington State, California, Indiana, and Maryland to develop their new, one-act plays with a director and actors. The plays are by and about women and the issues that shape their lives. The workshop culminates in a festival of staged readings.

At 2 p.m. Crystal V. Rhodes’s 1200 miles from Jerome will be read. Directed by Kathryn Markey, the play is set during World War II and is about a mother, her two daughters, a young school teacher, and 14-year-old Japanese-American fugitive.

Rhodes has served as Playwright-in-residence for the Connor Prairie Interactive History Park and is the recipient of The Black Theatre Alliance Award for her comedy, Stoops. Her play The Diary of Annie Mae Franklin won the American Stage 21st Century Voices New Play Festival and she was recently the recipient of the 2020 Creative Artist Renewal Fellowship awarded by the Indiana Arts Council.

Also performed at 2 p.m. will be Savior by Sharon Goldner and directed by Kate Katcher. This is a play about two modern moms at a yoga class dealing with this situation: What do you do when your five-year-old tells you he is the messiah?

Goldner’s award-winning plays have been performed in theaters from off Broadway to Los Angeles and in-between, including Toronto. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild. Her award-winning short stories have been published in literary journals in the United States and England, and she is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee.

At 7 p.m. Dagney Kerr’s Deanna and Paul, directed by Missy Burmeister, will be performed. The play is about Deanna, “a quirky waitress with a strict no-tipping policy, and Paul, a surly customer with a tight lid on his heart. Their lonely worlds collide one day in a small-town diner, where one cup of coffee can change everything,” according to a synopsis provided by the Ivoryton.

Kerr is a Los Angeles-based actress and writer. Her plays have been featured in many national playwriting festivals and competitions, winning Best Original Script, Audience Favorite, and Excellence in Playwriting Awards. Her short film Dalton recently premiered at the Los Angeles International Film Festival and her play Swindled Heart was recently published in a collection of noir-inspired works.

Also at 7 p.m. is Holly Arsenault’s Court directed by Ivoryton Playhouse Executive/Artistic Director Jacqueline Hubbard. This play is about Marle and Rosanna who, over the course of one evening in Rosanna’s attic bedroom, forge a bond in the flame of Rosanna’s very big problem: going to court to testify in her own custody hearing.

Arsenault is a Montreal-born, Seattle-based playwright. Her debut full-length play, Undo, was the recipient of the 2013 Theatre Puget Sound Gregory Award for Outstanding New Play and her work has been produced at Seattle Rep, Annex Theatre, Live Girls! Theater, The National Winter Playwriting Retreat, Mirror Stage, and Seattle Children’s Theatre. Her play The Great Inconvenience will be read at Sacred Fools Theatre in Los Angeles in March.

“We are very pleased about how this annual Women Playwrights Initiative continues to develop. It fits in nicely to this time slot year after year and it provides a new outlet for talented women playwrights,” said May.

Tickets are on sale now: single-performance tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for seniors, and $10 for students; for both performances, tickets are $30, $25, and $10. For more information call the Ivoryton Playhouse box office 860-767-7318 or visit www.ivorytonplayhouse.org.