Advertisement
Join us for our 3rd Annual Appalachian Playwriting Festival! Showing September 12-14, 2025 at Parkway Playhouse. This festival will feature staged readings of new plays written by Appalachian Playwrights or plays that represent Appalachian Culture in some way. One script from this festival will be chosen to be produced in our 2026 Mainstage Season!
✏️ Friday, September 12th will feature a keynote speaker, live music on the patio, light refreshments and a chance to mingle with our artists.
✏️ Saturday, September 13th will feature staged readings of all 3 Appalachian Playwriting Festival script selections.
⭐ Deera’s Country Funeral by Ned Dougherty is showing at 1pm. In this show, Ray Sally’s beloved tractor died and it’s time to have a funeral. But maybe it’s Ray Sally who is about to meet his maker since what good is an old farmer to the world if he can’t even keep a tractor running? On the surface, this is just a silly little play about a tractor, but underneath questions about destiny, rural masculinity, and the measure of a life well-lived face this tiny community caught at the height of their grief.
⭐ In a Manor of Speaking by Steven D. Miller is showing at 4pm. In this show, Spinster Florence Wren has fallen on hard times during the Great Depression and is renting her mansion, Wren Manor, to Raskin and Amelia Forbes, Northerners who are in town to scout locations for a textile mill and to repair their marriage. Into this situation comes Georgeanne Cash, a young woman hoping for elocution lessons so that she can snag a rich husband. Lives unravel and then find unanticipated resolutions.
⭐ Carswell Holler by Travis Lowe is showing at 7pm. In this show, when a traveling EPA agent stops in for a bite at a greasy spoon café in southern West Virginia’s coal country, it sets off a series of dangerous events and menacing stories, both real and imagined, natural and supernatural. A comedically elegant and broodingly dark celebration of Appalachia and its ghosts.
✏️ Sunday, September 14th will feature a staged reading of the script voted Best of Show by audiences on Saturday.
🎟️ Grab a pass for just $20 that gets you into everything: https://parkwayplayhouse.ludus.com/passes.php?widget=1
🎟️ Grab individual tickets for just $10: https://parkwayplayhouse.ludus.com/index.php?sections=events&widget=1
Advertisement
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Parkway Playhouse, 198 Green Mountain Dr, Burnsville, NC 28714-2604, United States
Tickets
