For nearly 30 years, the Performing Arts Department has produced the A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Festival as a vehicle to support and develop new plays written by WashU students.

The annual Festival begins with a university-wide solicitation of new, unproduced plays. Several plays are selected, through an anonymized screening process, to be developed in a two-week event in September. During those two weeks, each play will be workshopped with a professional dramaturg, a faculty director and a student cast. The Festival culminates in a public staged reading of each play. Assistant Professor Zachariah Ezer will serve as Festival dramaturg in September 2024. 

Hotch Fest is generously supported by the Office of the Dean of Arts & Sciences and the Newman’s Own Foundation.

Friday, September 20, 2024 at 7:30 p.m. 
Escape  
by Zach Berger 
Directed by Jeffery Matthews 

Saturday, September 21, 2024 at 7:30 p.m. 
Follow the....  
by Frauke Thielecke 
Directed by Annamaria Pileggi 

All Readings take place in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre 

Admission is free.