Orlando Shakes (Website) will open its annual PlayFest on Friday, October 30, with the first public reading of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright James Ijames’ new stage adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
Orlando Shakes commissioned the adaptation in partnership with the University of Central Florida and Arden Theatre Company. The work has been in private development since the commission, so the PlayFest reading is the first time audiences will hear it. The full production is scheduled for its world premiere at Orlando Shakes in Spring 2028, as part of the 2027-28 season.
Hurston’s 1937 novel is set in Eatonville, one of the nation’s first incorporated all-Black municipalities and a community central to Hurston’s life and writing. The story follows Janie Crawford’s journey toward independence and identity through three defining relationships.
“This story is so deeply connected to Central Florida and to Eatonville, just miles from our theater,” said Roberta Emerson, director of new play development at Orlando Shakes. She said the reading is “exactly what PlayFest and our New Play Commission Program are designed to do.”
Ijames won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for “Fat Ham,” a contemporary reimagining of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” The play was nominated for the 2023 Tony Award for Best Play.
The fest also includes five other productions, including:
- “The Boy King in Queens” by Tammy Ryan, Saturday, October 31, at 2 p.m. Set in 1978 as the “Treasures of Tutankhamun” exhibit arrives at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, it follows a Teamster truck driver whose life unravels after he peeks inside the crate carrying Tutankhamun’s death mask.
- “Luca & Uri” by Nicholas Pilapil, Sunday, November 1, at 2 p.m. Over a decade in Los Angeles, two men fall in and out of love as their dreams pull them apart.
- “The Ancestry Dot Com Play” by Alyssa Haddad-Chin, Friday, November 6, at 7 p.m. A woman who never knew her father confronts her family’s past after a friend takes a DNA test on her behalf without her consent.
- “Refuse It: A Black Woman’s Guide to 21st Century Rage” by Phanésia Pharel, Saturday, November 7, at 7 p.m. A darkly comedic series of vignettes about Black women rejecting expectations.
- “Tiny Edens” by Tira Palmquist, Sunday, November 8, at 2 p.m. A play about preparing for death while embracing every moment of life.
PlayFest has introduced more than 182 new works over the years. More than 20 plays first presented there have gone on to full productions on the Orlando Shakes mainstage. PlayFest 2026 is presented by The More Good Fund, supported by Michael Dively, with additional support from Frank Santos and Corbett Compel.
The festival runs through Sunday, November 8, and features staged readings of six new plays over two weekends. For tickets and full details, click HERE.
