Helping Promising Playwrights

Over 67 years, The Colonial Players of Annapolis has made its reputation by producing top-quality plays and musicals like The Liar, which earned the British Embassy’s 2015 Ruby Griffith Award as the best overall community theater production in the Washington-Baltimore area.
    The all-volunteer company also encourages new works. Since 1973 it has sponsored a biennial Promising Playwright competition. 2015’s winner was in the spotlight last weekend.
    Chosen from among more than 130 promising plays, the winning work is Kid Turboni Brings the Rain, by Philadelphian Mark Costello. The poignant and funny Kid Turboni is the story of a pair of precociously snarky 12­-year-olds and their flight of fancy to bring a drought-­ending rainstorm to their sweltering housing project in Albuquerque. In addition to earning Costello $1,000, the play was the centerpiece of a weekend workshop at the theater, featuring two rehearsed readings by a cast of local actors followed by discussions about how the play might be fully staged.
    “Colonial gave my script a caring and critical eye that allowed me to see it in a new light, one my long-time collaborators might be unable to provide because they are too used to the things in my writing that need greater levels of polish,” said Costello. “I know the script better now, and the rich community at Colonial is to thank for that.”