durango playfest

7th Annual

Durango PlayFest

June 24-29, 2025

Individual Tickets & Festival Passes Available BELOW

Where stars shine brighter!

June 24
Festival Kickoff Party (6:00pm)

June 26
Becky & Her Lung Transplant (7:00pm)

June 27
There Are Monsters (3:00pm)
Drag Queen Magic (7:00pm)

June 28
Drowning (3:00pm)
There Are Monsters (7:00pm)

June 29
Becky and Her Lung Transplant (11:00am)
Drag Queen Magic (3:00pm)
Drowning (7:00pm)

Each summer, professional and emerging playwrights, actors and directors gather for a week to develop and workshop new plays before showcasing them at staged readings in front of local audiences. At our 7th annual festival, June 24-29, 2025, we’re featuring playwrights Ian August, Andrea Aptecker, Bill Capossere, and husband/wife writing duo Lucy Wright and William Missouri Downs.

Durango PlayFest is an incubator for professional actors, directors and playwrights as well as regional artists to develop new work. Audiences will have a window into their creative process and interact with them during panels, artists talks, parties and post show talkbacks.

Experience exciting stage readings of original stories and an up-close-and-personal journey into the art of storytelling. Each of the plays will have a script-in-hand readings at the Durango Arts Center theatre. Talkback sessions, workshops, panels, a festival party and other events throughout the week offer an unparalleled opportunity to participate in this wildly creative festival.

Individual Show Tickets

playfest kickoff party
June 24: 6-8pm
Rochester Hotel
June 26: 7–9pm
June 29: 11am–1pm
June 27: 3–5pm
June 28: 7–9pm
DQM
June 27: 7–9pm
June 29: 3–5pm
June 28: 3–5pm
June 29: 7–9pm

Full Festival Pass (40 available)

This Year's Shows & Events

becky and her lung transplant

Becky and Her Lung Transplant

Desperate for work and facing middle age, a divorced Hollywood screenwriter takes a crap job writing an “inspiring” family channel movie about a child’s lung transplant, only to discover that the “true story” may not be true, nor is her own life.

drowning

Drowning

Wracked with grief, Roger reconstructs his drowned son’s bedroom in their empty backyard pool. Roger’s neighbor, Simon, is drawn into Roger’s anguish. Both men are emotionally haunted by their potential responsibility for the drowning, but also literally haunted (possibly) by the dead boy himself.

D.Q.M. or Drag Queen Magic

Drag queen Letta Celebrate just wants to live her life lip-syncing Lady Gaga at birthdays, weddings, and the occasional bar mitzvah, but when a strange woman asks for help after losing everything, Letta finds herself desperate to save her or be doomed to repeat the same day over and over.

monsters

There Are Monsters

When a wealthy husband and wife welcome a pair of stranded strangers into their elegant but isolated home in the countryside, disturbing connections come to light. With a storm raging and no cell coverage, the evening takes a macabre turn.

kickoff party

Festival Kickoff Party

Help us kick off PlayFest’s 7th annual festival with drinks and heavy appetizers in the lovely Rochester Hotel Secret Garden. Learn more about this year’s plays while mingling with the playwrights, actors, directors, our staff and board plus other friends of PlayFest.