PlayPenn

Mark your calendars! Whether it's your first time or your 21st, this year's New Play Development Conference has something for everyone. Check out our schedule.

Most events are FREE! Will we see you this summer?

Get your tickets at www.playpenn.org/events

Tickets are now on sale for our 19-event summer conference, running July 17 through August 2!

The 2026 New Play Development Conference brings together 22 playwrights participating across workshops, conversations, and five new work presentations (Sarah Mantell, Roger Q. Mason, Zoe Palmer and more) while expanding its scope to include an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Eboni Booth (Primary Trust), free playwriting workshops for adults, teens, and women over 50, and a public conversation examining constitutional history and civic identity.

Additional programming includes a community workshop for q***r theatre makers; a convening on innovation in theatre-making with leaders from Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Cannonball Festival, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Lemonade Stand, Tiny Dynamite and more; and an acting lab focused on approaches to new play development and cross-community exchanges among theatre artists.

Eboni Booth, Roger Q. Mason, and Sarah Mantell Headline PlayPenn’s 2026 New Play Development Conference: “Democracy in Action” This year’s Philadelphia new play conference marks the nation’s 250th anniversary and features a national cohort of artists including Tyler Dobrowsky, Danilo Gambini, Taibi Magar, Amrita Ramanan, and Charlie Thurston.