TRASH TALK by Alano P. Baez
Two men wait for oblivion in a dystopian incarnation of Yonkers, NY, inside a large garbage container. Bobby, a street poet and vet, challenges Garbageman, a sanitation worker whose hand nearly fell off after touching some strange chemical substance, in a battle of wits, wills, and fierce wordplay. This deeply imagistic and strikingly poetic two-hander takes audiences on a ride towards...who knows.

EXPOSURE by Cynthia Hines
The Hope family, longtime residents of southside Chicago, have a lot going on. We meet irascible, Vietnam-vet father Edmond and his two daughters: Veronica, a PTSD-stricken combat photographer home from Iraq, and Dina, who's trying to hold down a job and keep things together. The images Veronica captured with her camera while overseas won't let her go -- her PTSD is physically embodied by a rifle-wielding, abusive alter-ego -- and neither will the guilt over her best friend's suicide. Exposure is a fearless play about fear, unfinished business, and living in war zones, here and abroad.

SMOKE by David Tucker
During a deadly Ebola outbreak in Liberia, two workers in a crematorium are tasked with the job of burning the bodies of the dead. Samuel, who's trying at all costs to provide for his family, and Junior, a young man who just wants to get back to university and kiss a girl, bond over shared, shockingly-mundane trauma. As its characters grapple with the ghosts of past responsibilities and regrets, Smoke paints a gripping, humane portrait of the struggle to honor the dead while protecting the living.

A GIRL WITH A GUN by Suzanne Willett
An all-female team of soldiers stationed in Iraq is charged with calming and communicating with the local women of the area, while the male soldiers work to flush out insurgents. As the team prepares for their mission with varying levels of skill and enthusiasm, the soldiers' different relationships to femininity, power, love, and conflict come in and out of vital relevance. A new commanding officer creates friction, and the women’s secrets and traumas erupt -- leading to an encounter on their mission that goes disastrously wrong.

Judge
Suzan-Lori Parks

Submissions Coordinator/Reader Committee Chair
Anna O’Donoghue

Reading Committee
Will Arbery
Heidi Armbruster
David Auburn
J. Stephen Brantley
Bekah Brunstetter
Jack Canfora
Nat Cassidy
Alice Eve Cohen
Nick Gandiello
Morgan Gould
Aleshea Harris
Claire Kiechel
Eric Lane
Mona Mansour
Caroline McGraw
Catya McMullen
Winter Miller
Anna Moench
Geo Decass O'Donnell
Tira Palmquist
Emily Schwend
Crystal Skillman
Daniel Talbott
Cori Thomas

Lawrence Benenson
Elyse Harary
Samuel French