Soul Rep Theatre Company will kick off its 9th season with the 9th annual New Play Festival. The groundbreaking, thought provoking and always entertaining festival features six new plays, four by Texas writers and two by students of Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.

• Teach, by poet/author/playwright Camika Spencer, is a new drama depicting the powerful encounter and shocking “life lesson“ between a teacher and one of her students.
• Him/Her, a moody multi-media piece exploring “Black love” and the complicated relationship between a musician and his girlfriend, is written by Mary Hill Spigner, a writer based in Tyler, Texas.
• Drums of My So Black Me, written by artist and company member, Chris Herod, is the festival’s "throwback" show. This hard-hitting and irreverent piece about being a Black man in America was first produced in 1998 and has been revised for new audiences, sadly, in light of still relevant current events. Florida native Reginald Hanna will once again lend his stealth directing skills to this piece.
• Soul Rep co-founder/Executive Director and breast cancer survivor, Anyika McMillan-Herod, will present Scenes from the Monarch, developed this past year in the Dallas Theater Center’s Dallas Playwrights Workshop, with Will Power. Directed by actress/director Monique Williams, the play is an inspiring, funny and compelling journey through breast cancer.

The final offerings of this year’s festival are written, directed, and performed by students of Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Directed by Amariah Williams, 110% by Max Sedacca features Emir Price and Joshua Sedacca.  The play explores a young man’s journey toward “coming out.” Inside Edition, written by LaNeedra Cornelius, is a comedy about a news anchor featuring Nick Godfrey, Alex Lifton, Emir Price, Demi Tomasides, and Hannah Brown. Shaun Morgan will direct.