Words Cubed

Words Cubed is the Festival’s new play program that seeks to nurture and develop openly submitted, solicited, and commissioned plays. By providing a professionally supported platform for readings, workshops, and fully realized productions, it is a part of an ongoing commitment to create a diverse body of work.

Playwrights spend a week at the Festival during our summer season in rehearsals with directors, actors, and stage managers as they refine and rework their plays. At the end of the week, the revised plays are presented as staged readings or workshops, followed by a lively, interactive discussion between the playwright, actors, and audience.

Two plays will have staged readings during August 2025. Tickets are $20 and are available online, or by visiting or calling the Ticket Office at (800)-PLAYTIX.

“A” Play:
AFFAIRS OF STATE
by Tony Manzo
August 8, 9, 20, and 22, 2025

Affairs of State is a sharp, fast-paced dramatic comedy about a scandal-hit Congressman and the reporter who could save—or ruin—his career. With just weeks left in his re-election campaign, he’s facing criminal accusations, and she’s chasing the story that could launch her career. But as tensions escalate, their tangled past resurfaces, forcing them to decide how much they’re willing to risk—for the truth, for power, and maybe for each other.

Tony Manzo is a freelance writer for full-service advertising agencies in New York City. His comedies have been performed at regional theatres across the country. His theatrical credits include On the Treetop, produced by The American Theater of Actors; Saving Allison, optioned by Miracle Entertainment; The Wedding, directed and produced by Sherwood Arthur; and Waiting in the Wings. His one-act play, Flight to Paris, has been staged by Know Theatre, The Lakeshore Players, Women in Theatre, and the Acme New Works Winter Festival. The Lifeguard was presented at the William Inge Festival, and Status of Forces was featured at the Ciementos Festival of New Plays. Most recently, A Heart-Warming Story was produced by the Barn Theatre.

“B” Play:
MUSE OF FIRE
by Lauren M. Gunderson
August 15, 16, 21, and 23, 2025
(Note: Lauren will be acting in the readings on August 15 and 16.)

Muse of Fire is an intimate two-hander diving into the life and love of William Shakespeare and his wife, Anne, at the volatile moment of Will’s retirement from London and a life on the boards. Exploring art, ambition, and the searing emotional and creative fuel behind the world’s greatest playwright, Muse of Fire grapples with the sacrifices, joys, losses and loves of a life in the theatre, while excavating the muscular heart of a storyteller and his muse.

Lauren M. Gunderson is one of the most produced playwrights in America since 2015, topping the list three times including 2022-23. She is a two-time winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for I and You and The Book of Will, the William Inge Distinguished Achievement in Theater Award, the Lanford Wilson Award, the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the Arthur L. Weissberger Award, and John Gassner Award for Playwriting.

Her musical adaptation of The Time Traveller’s Wife premiered on The West End last year and her new play Billie Jean about tennis icon Billie Jean King is Broadway bound after premiering at Chicago Shakespeare this summer. Revolutionary Women, her new anthology of five plays, was published by Bloomsbury in 2023.

She studied Southern Literature and Drama at Emory University, and Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. Her play The Catastrophist, about her husband virologist Nathan Wolfe, premiered digitally in January 2021 and is now in The COVID Art Capsule in the Library of Congress. She co-authored the Miss Bennet trilogy with Margot Melcon. The Half-Life of Marie Curie premiered off-Broadway and at Audible.com. 

Her work is published at Playscripts (I and You; Exit Pursued By A Bear; The Taming and Toil And Trouble), Dramatists Play Service (The Revolutionists; The Book of Will; Silent Sky; Bauer, Natural Shocks, The Wickhams and Miss Bennet) and Samuel French (Emilie). Her picture book Dr. Wonderful: Blast Off to the Moon is available from Two Lions/Amazon. She is the book writer for musicals with Dave Stewart and Joss Stone (The Time Traveler’s Wife), Ari Afsar (Jeannette and I and You), Joriah Kwamé (Lady M), Kira Stone (Built for This) and Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk (Justice and Earthrise). She is a board member of The Playwrights Foundation, and a member of the Aspen Institute Science and Society cohort. LaurenGunderson.com