The At First Sight New Works Festival returns for its 14th year from Jan. 23–31 at Indiana University’s Studio Theater. The festival offers free workshops, stage readings and panels led by Master of Fine Arts playwriting and dramaturgy students, giving audiences a first look at their new works in development.
The festival will feature three staged readings of plays developed by MFA playwriting candidates Wren Aubrey Latham, Júlia Cerqueira and Golsa Sohrabi, all directed by IU Southeast Asian and ASEAN Studies professor Jennifer Goodlander. The plays began development two years ago after Ana Candida Carneiro, head of the MFA playwriting program, restructured the festival program.
In 2024, Carneiro shifted the festival to a cohort model that has students within the three-year program collaborate on new work, with the goal of creating a full production in the final year of the cycle. Next year will be the first time a cohort produces full-length plays, including the same works presented as staged readings this year.
“It (the festival) points towards an evolution of what a play is or could be,” Carneiro said. “You have these three different stages of a play or three different opportunities. We can arrive in the third year where the plays have already been on stage, so they have been produced more smoothly.”
The productions are developed over months or even years, alongside the coursework and structure of the playwriting program. In each MFA playwriting student’s second year they're paired with an MFA dramaturgy student to collaborate on a production.
Dramaturgy students support and analyze a production, thinking through and audiences' eyes, helping the playwriter better connect with what works while creating a play.
“Every single play, lots of movies and the media that we all love today start with this development process where things are refined and edited,” third-year dramaturgy student Megan Gray Lederman said. “I think it's really important for students to learn this way and experience because it’s not something that you get to see all the time.”
Each staged reading will be followed by a post-show discussion led by the MFA dramaturgy student assigned to the production, Spencer Wilkes Fields, Sheridan Schreyer and Lederman.
The festival gives the productions their first opportunity to engage with an audience and see what works and what doesn’t.
“I’m excited to finally bring in the most crucial element of theater, which is the audience, so we can start seeing how these shows really work once they’re on their feet,” Fields said.
The festival has evolved over the years, and the program plans to keep building on that growth. Carneiro said she hopes to bring more IU departments into the festival in the near future.
“I would love to still create space for more interdisciplinary experiences so that people can have an expanded vision of what theater and playwriting is,” Carneiro said. “It’s not only writing in place for a theatrical space but also writing with a performative lens.”
Carneiro said she also wants to deepen the festival’s connection to Bloomington by planning more events that involve community participation.
“My vision is that the festival becomes not only a space for new play development, but a space of community, a space of dialogue, and a space for collaboration,” she said.
More information about At First Sight New Works Festival can be found on the Department of Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance website.
