Susan J. Westfall National Short Playwriting Contest
Susan J. Westfall National Short Playwriting Contest
Susan J. Westfall National Short Playwriting Contest
Susan J. Westfall National Short Playwriting Contest
The 2025–2026 Finalists
Created to acknowledge playwright excellence in short plays and musicals
City Theatre seeks compelling plays that rise above the ordinary.
This season, 600 playwrights from across the country submitted lively, timely, hilarious, provocative, poignant, and surprising scripts. Playwrights were invited to submit short plays that span style and genre, including bilingual scripts and ten-minute musicals. We encourage writers who self-identify as coming from a historically marginalized community and writers at all career levels to submit. Once received, each play is reviewed by 2-3 readers and the highest-scoring plays move to a second round. For our 30th season, Artistic Director Margaret M. Ledford selected 30 finalist plays. Playwrights never pay a submission fee, and readers receive an honorarium for their time. Finalist scripts are contenders for production at various programs City Theatre presents year-round.
THE FINALISTS LISTED ALPHABETICALLY
Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend
37 Origami Bees
CHICAGO, IL
Lisa Dellagiarino Feriend is an award-winning playwright, a member of the Dramatists Guild, and President of the Board of Arts For All, a NYC-based nonprofit bringing accessible artistic opportunities to children who face barriers to exploring the arts. She is a big fan of cheese.
Queen Esther
Ping! Ping!
NEW YORK, NY
Raised in The ATL + rooted in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, Queen Esther is a NYC based generative performing artist, producer and TED Speaker. She applies an unconventional theatricality to original songs and stagecraft, constructing worlds infused with historical truths and an unapologetic Blackness that resonates from the past into the present.
Alex Fortune
Leave Only Crumbs
CHICAGO, IL
Alex Fortune is a playwright and screenwriter in Chicago. His play Forsythian Dweller’s Club (Golden Lanyard winner, Minnesota Fringe), is now a feature film. His short plays include Hello From the End of the World (Yellow Rose) as well as Narrative Machine Broke, Leave only Crumbs, and Halberdiers (The Impostors).
D.W. Gregory
D.W. Gregory
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV
D.W. Gregory is best known for Radium Girls, with nearly 3,000 productions worldwide. She is developing a musical version with composer Steven M. Alper and lyricist Sarah Knapp. Other works include Memoirs of a Forgotten Man, The Yellow Stocking Play, and A Thing Of Beauty.
Steve Harper
For the Dark-Skinned Movie Going People of the World
LOS ANGELES, CA
Steve Harper is a playwright, actor, and TV writer-producer. His plays have been produced by The Fire This Time Festival, Vivid Stage, and The Theater Project, and developed by New York Theatre Workshop, New York Stage & Film, Classical Theatre of Harlem, and The Road Theatre Company. Juilliard playwriting graduate.
Luke Herzog
The 7th Inversion
BROOKLYN, NY
Luke Herzog is a playwright and screenwriter pursuing his Dramatic Writing MFA at NYU Tisch. One of 20 artists in the country chosen as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts and honored at the White House. In 2023, he won the John Cauble Award at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in Washington, D.C. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, and his work can be accessed on the New Play Exchange. BA: Amherst College.
Kandace James
This Is How You Capture the Light
PITTSBURGH, PA
Kandace James’ work has been developed at GPTC, Voices of Women Theatre Festival, and Yale Cabaret. She is a MacDowell Fellow, former Core Apprentice at the Playwrights’ Center, and recipient of the Hip-Hop Theatre Creator, Rosa Parks Playwriting, and John Cauble Awards. Her play is forthcoming from CMU Press.
Cerulean Chen Long
Fly
NEW YORK, NY
Cerulean is a writer, director, and co-artistic producing director of in-version ensemble, a collective of women and non-binary artists. A queer artist from China, they seek grammar and form to challenge, transform, and heal. Recent credits include Fish in the Tank (Hollywood Fringe), Vanishing (Edinburgh Fringe), Before it Hurts (ChuanFest).
David MacGregor
A Modest Proposal II
HOWELL, MI
David’s work has been performed from New York to Tasmania and is published by Concord Theatricals and Theatrical Rights Worldwide (TRW). He adapted his play "Vino Veritas" into a film starring Carrie Preston, and his newest play, "Mildred Whiskey," will premiere at the Purple Rose Theatre (Chelsea, MI) in 2027.
William L. Walker Montgomerie
Refresh to Load
PARIS, TX
A Texas-based playwright whose work weaves history, identity, and community into deeply human stories. Drawing inspiration from global storytelling traditions and a love of theatrical minimalism and ensemble work, Montgomerie creates work that honors the ordinary and the extraordinary in equal measure. His artistic vision centers on the power of memory, resilience, and connection—celebrating the voices that shape us, the ghosts that haunt us, and the beauty found in rebuilding and belonging.
Leslie Powell
Change
TUCSON, AZ
Leslie Powell’s (she/her/hers) long and short plays have been workshopped and produced nationwide and in Canada including the InspiraTo festival. Her fiction and non-fiction work has appeared online and in journals such as Zoetrope. She is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild and lives in Tucson, Arizona.
Leo Eigen
Lox
NEW YORK CITY, NY
Leo Eigen is an incoming student at Princeton University. He has won numerous national writing awards, and his plays have been staged in New York City, Los Angeles, and several other cities. One of his scripts was produced as a short film that has appeared at festivals across the country.
August W. Guszkowski
Kate, Once
CAMBRIDGE, MA
August W. Guszkowski is a playwright and librarian from Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work has appeared onstage in collaboration with Parish Players, Broadway Bods, the Red Bull Theater, the Boston Theater Marathon, and the Boston Fringe Festival. He lives with his partner and their big orange cat, Widget.
Rand Higbee
A Pointless Jester
YACHATS, OR
Originally from Spearfish, South Dakota, Rand Higbee obtained a Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Since UNLV days Rand has become known for his “family friendly” comedies such as “The Head That Wouldn’t Die.” He currently lives on the Oregon Coast in Yachats.
Rebecca Kane
Help from the Pod
QUEENS, NY
Rebecca Kane’s writing has appeared in numerous theatres, festivals, and readings in New York City and beyond, with credits including Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival, Last Frontier Theatre Conference, William Inge New Play Festival, the National Women’s Theatre Festival, and many more.
Rachel Lynett
oranges
SAINT PAUL, MN
Rachel Lynett is a queer Afro-Latine playwright. Lynett was the 2021 recipient of the Yale Drama Prize for their play, Apologies to Lorraine Hansberry (You Too August Wilson) and the 2021 recipient of the National Latinx Playwriting Award for their play, Black Mexican. Lynett received commissions from Barrington Stage Company, Florida Studio Theatre, and Yale Rep. Rachel Lynett is a 2026-2027 McKnight Fellow in Playwriting at the Playwrights’ Center.
Melissa Maney
The Scorned Women's Salon
NEW YORK, NY
Melissa Maney (she/her) is a playwright whose work explores the spectrum of womanhood through absurdism, nuance, and humor. Her work has been presented at SoHo Playhouse, The Great Plains Theatre Commons, The Valdez Theatre Conference, New Perspectives Theatre Company, Theatre Row, The Tank, Theater for the New City, The Chain Theatre, The Players Theatre, and others.
Eric Pfeffinger
The Loom Where It Happens
TOLEDO, OH
Eric Pfeffinger is a Dramatists Guild member and a Relentless Award honoree from the American Playwriting Foundation. His plays have been produced by the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Denver Theatre Center, and elsewhere. He was last spotted somewhere in flyover country.
Emma S. Rund
The Fix a Dinosaur
CHICAGO, IL
Emma S. Rund is a Chicago-based playwright, dramaturg, and avid reader passionate about the power of live theatre to share truth. As Tim O'Brien so beautifully wrote in The Things They Carried, "I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth." She’s had the pleasure of workshopping her plays with Women’s Theatre Alliance, Wayward Sisters, Actors Theatre of Indiana (ATI), the Rogue Theatre Festival, and more. You can find Emma’s work on NPX.
Yu-Li Alice Shen
Pearls Before Swine
TOLEDO, OH
Yu-Li Alice Shen is a playwright, English professor, and audiobook narrator. Her plays have received awards from the American Playwriting Foundation, ATHE-KCACTF, and SETC, and they have been fully produced in New York and a handful of other states. In her spare time, Alice sings and plays ukulele at local assisted living facilities, co-hosts a humor/improv podcast called Going Terribly, and lends her quirky, versatile voice to the audiobook narration industry.