About us
Kindly note, the below is still very much in development! We are less than a year old as a nonprofit and are still learning about ourselves. Our leadership, Collective and board are engaged in conversations about our mission, vision, and core values regularly, and we look forward to making it all official by the end of 2025. In the meantime, the below is our current ‘hypothesis’ of ourselves! :)
Our Mission
The mission of The Whiskey Theatre Factory is to develop new plays and create a community for emerging playwrights in Central Florida. To accomplish our mission, we produce play reading Salons, workshops, staged readings, and developmental productions (learn more about our programs here).
Through these activities, we provide opportunities for directors, actors, and technical theatre-makers to engage with exciting local plays, grow in their crafts, and be a part of a community.
Our VISION
Our vision is that every playwright and theatre artist passionate about new work in Central Florida - regardless of their experience level, background, or education - will have a community and a place to develop their work through a professional, excellent process that makes our entire community more playwright-forward.
Why ‘Whiskey?’
Like an excellent whiskey, a new play takes time, thought, and passion to develop. (Also it means our initials are ‘WTF’ - so yeah that’s pretty great)
What kinds of work do you Develop?
We exclusively develop and produce new plays from writers with a connection to Central Florida - but the subject matter can vary wildly! We’ve developed plays set in living rooms and literally three plays set in space. We’ve done a play set in the 1880s and a play set in the way distant future. We’ve done plays with casts of 10+ and two-handers. We’ve done 5 minute plays and a play that was almost 3 hours, and we’ve loved it all. Feel free to look through our ‘Event Archive’ to learn more about what we’ve developed.
Importantly, the work we develop does not have to be for a mainstream audience. We secure grants and donor funding so the art can always remain central. Of course, we love our audiences and patrons, but playwrights - their plays, their visions, their ideas - come first.
Our Values
DEMOCRATIZATION OF PLAYWRITING. We believe playwrights can come from anywhere, be of any age, have any kind of background! Being able to share one’s voice is rewarding, powerful, and important, and should be an opportunity available to everyone with something to say. We do not ask playwrights to ‘submit’ to us - show up to one of our programs, and we’ll show up for you!
RESPECT FOR THE PROCESS. We recognize that plays are not production-ready at the first draft and meet playwrights and their work wherever they are. We also ask playwrights to extend the same mentality to their team: treating our programs as an informative piece of their play’s journey, not the final result. We are not a multi-million dollar production-based theatre and have no desire to be!
RESPECT FOR ONE ANOTHER. No matter where a playwright, theatre artist, rental venue, vendor, or community partner is in their journey, we treat them with respect through: professionalism, honesty, timely responses, facilitation of disagreement, and clarity of purpose. While we will cheer on any individual or organization that produces new work, we cannot collaborate directly with those who do not share this commitment to best practices for organizational management (trust me, it’s best for everyone!). While that all might sound super-nerdy, we have seen that holding to these practices provides a structure for everyone to do their best creative work.
PLAYWRIGHT-FORWARD APPROACH. We don’t tell playwrights how to write their plays, we don’t ‘tame’ plays, and we believe playwrights should have ultimate authority about what kind of feedback they receive and from whom. For working productions, we provide the opportunity for playwrights to continue to develop the work and tell us what production elements/decisions they want to be involved in.
COMMUNITY. To achieve our vision, we welcome and support any theatre artist or theatre organization in our community interested in developing new plays. We provide opportunities for artists to act, direct, stage manage, and produce (even if they’ve never done so, or are coming back to theatre after a hiatus) and offer dramaturgical, grant writing, and new play development support to any local organization looking to develop/produce new work.
JOY! While we take new play development seriously, we also have to say: we usually have a LOT of fun with our projects! :) We balanced professionalism with experimentation & play. Here, there’s no pressure to garner a huge audience, sell a bunch of tickets, or present something that is ‘perfect.’ Let’s embrace the beautiful, wonderful, sometimes-messy journey!
I’m in! How do I get involved?
Are you a Central Florida-based playwright or theatre artist? Fill out our survey! If you are a playwright, we’d love to get to know your work. If you are a theatre artist interested in acting in, directing, or participating in new plays, we can add you to our audition lists and/or calls for directions and technical theatre-makers!
Do you run or work with a Central Florida theatre company in need of dramaturgical support or playwriting resources? Reach out to Bethany@WhiskeyTheatreFactory.com and let’s see how we can collaborate! If you are interested in connecting with other organizations, you can also reach out to Charis@WhiskeyTheatreFactory.com to learn more about our Nomadic Theatre Brunches.
Unfortunately, we do not develop work from playwrights living and working outside of Central Florida, unless you have a strong connection (went to school here, used to live here, and/or make theatre with Central Florida artists regularly). Our friends at The Playwrights’ Round Table accept submissions from national writers, though! Check them out!