The Lake Placid Center for the Arts has announced the winners of their Zoom Play Festival. The contest was held in late August for theatre artists to create and share a play over Zoom. LPCA plans to present a showcase of the winning pieces, as well as the honorable mentions on February 19.

Collaboration with Directors and Theatres has begun in order to produce the works, with LPCA having plans to produce several of the plays they received in-house. They received over 135 short plays that were submitted from all over the world, from New Zealand to Canada. The great number of submissions required help from several playwrights and artists around the country to help evaluate the plays, which were scored in areas like plot development, character voice, and adherence to the submission criteria.

“When COVID hit the performing arts world, there were so many playwrights and actors instantly put out of work. Many theatres started doing online play readings, but it can be difficult to translate a play written for the stage to an online platform. So we thought what if we put out a call for submissions for short plays written specifically with Zoom in mind”, says Tara Palen, Director of Education and Outreach at the LPCA.

The winning plays and honorable mentions are:

Joe the Rememberer – James Still, Winner

Dream On, Black Girl – Maxine Joie du Maine, Winner

Choices –  James McClindon, winner

Who’s On Zoom? – Cynthia Faith Arsenault, Winner

Pandemic Speed Dating – Molly Wagner, Honorable Mention

Meetings – Mike Adams, Honorable Mention

How Do I Get This Thing to Work? – Lawrence Goodman, Honorable Mention

It Looks Like Snow – Jeffrey Kirkland, Honorable Mention