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Formed in 2002 by director Steve Umberger, Playworks is a production company that has developed new scripts, produced, co-produced with other organizations, and toured. Among the company’s past productions are “Husbandry” by Patrick Tovatt, “Heathen Valley” by Romulus Linney, “Finding Donis Anne” by Hal Corley, "Open Season" by Michael McKeever, and the premieres of “Counter Girls” by Michael Russell and “Some Things That Can Go Wrong at 35,000 Feet” by John Orlock.

Playworks has also maintained a commitment to new plays through staged readings and conferences such as the New Projects Festival. Partnerships have included "Thinking in Pictures," produced with The Light Factory.  TIP featured the unusual format of film scripts in staged readings. (“Gospel Hill,” an entry in the festival, was soon after made into a feature film with Jullia Stiles, Danny Glover, Angela Bassett, and Giancarlo Esposito, directed by Esposito.)  Other TIP scripts included Robert Inman's "Dairy Queen Days," based on his best selling novel (and subsequently premiered at Blowing Rock Stage Company), and "Anita Bryant Died For Your Sins" by Brian Christopher Williams, 2010 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award winner.

Film projects have included shorts based on Patrick Tovatt's play "Husbandry," which received an Arts & Science Council Emerging Artist Grant, and Christopher Kyle's "Boca" (see links for more).

Education activities have included classes and work/study programs through which theatre students have worked alongside professionals both onstage and backstage, as well as workshops by visiting artists such as Karl Baumann, veteran actor/acrobat with Cirque du Soleil. Baumann is also the leading performer in a new version of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," developed by Playworks in three productions.

Current projects include the development of a new musical "Lunch at the Piccadilly," based on the best-selling novel by noted author Clyde Edgerton, with a score by former Red Clay Rambler and Drama Desk Award winner Mike Craver.  The show has had three productions, most recently at Festival Stage in 2011.  

Funding for projects comes from private sources, from organizations with which Playworks collaborates, and from grants and foundations such as Rockwell International and The Wesley Mancini Foundation.

Click on "Links" above for more information about specific projects.