Hollins 2025 Events
Summer 2026 New Works Events through our partnership with the Hollins Playwright’s Lab
For more than four decades, Mill Mountain Theatre has had the development of new plays as part of
our core mission. We have been home to a prominent national playwriting contest, premieres of new
plays on both the Trinkle and Waldron stages, the Norfolk Southern Festival of New Works, CenterPieces
and our ongoing partnership with the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins University has helped Roanoke gain an
international reputation as an artistic home for new work since that program launched in 2007. Each
year, Hollins brings professional theatre artists from all over the globe to our city as faculty, guest
speakers, and visiting artists mounting productions.
We are proud to provide our theatre spaces and resources so that Playwright’s Lab events can be off-
campus, downtown, and open to the general public. We invite you to take advantage of this unique
opportunity to share in these events. A complete listing can be found on the Playwright’s Lab Facebook
Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/hollinsplaywrights/events.
A brief description of the free Playwright’s Lab events hosted at Mill Mountain Theatre follows.
July 4 | Overnight Sensations | 7:30 pm
It’s the 20 th anniversary of Overnight Sensations! Since 2006, the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins University
has partnered with Mill Mountain Theatre to present a micro-brewed theatre festival. On Friday
night, playwrights are randomly paired with directors, who then randomly draw from a hat a variety
of writing prompts and a pre-selected cast of local actors. Before 9am the next morning, they must
write a 10-minute play. They meet with their directors over a continental breakfast on Saturday
morning and make any last-minute changes before the actors arrive and the plays begin rehearsal.
When 7:30pm rolls around, and the audience are in their seats, the show begins! Tickets are free and
open to the public. No need to reserve in advance!
July 24-26 | Hollins Playwrights Festival of New Works
Each summer at the end of July, we present a three-day event showcasing workshop productions and
readings of student work from the Playwright’s Lab. These performances are at Mill Mountain
Theatre’s Waldron Stage for the general public and guest professional. On Sunday at 4 pm (EST) there
will be a panel discussion when our guest artists will introduce themselves, talk briefly about their
own background, and then give a moderated response to the festival as a whole. Get acquainted with
these plays and playwrights before they are famous and engage in a conversation about theatre with
our students, faculty, and some established theatre professionals. This event is always free, but has
limited seating that is first come, first served.
All festival events take place at MMT’s Waldron Stage (20 Church Avenue SE).
Friday, July 24
7:30 pm 2 Cities by Claire F. Martin
Saturday, July 25
11 am Hand of One by Ami Trowell
3 pm Hipponaut by Mack Burns
4:30pm Holey Rite by Emily Fleischhauer
7:30 pm The Gone Women by Adrian Lee Bush
Sunday, July 26
2 pm Sine Dine by Robert Watts
4 pm Festival Guest Respondent Panel
Hollins/Mill Mountain Theatre Partnership
A Dynamic Academic/Professional Partnership
Mill Mountain Theatre has a longstanding relationship with Hollins University, and the Hollins Theatre Institute. Among the exciting collaborations currently on the boards are:
Hollins-Mill Mountain Winter Festival of New Works. Each year new works from HTI are given world-premiere and workshop productions on MMT’s professional stages, fulfilling Roanoke’s long-standing enthusiasm and support for the development of new works.
M.F.A. Playwright’s Lab summer residency at MMT. For six weeks every summer, the M.F.A. program in playwriting (also known as Playwright’s Lab) splits its time between the Hollins campus and MMT’s various stages, hosting guest speakers of national renown, the annual Summer Festival of Play Readings, and Overnight Sensations, a micro-brewed new play festival of freshly baked plays.
Faculty and guest artists. Working professional artists from MMT serve as adjunct faculty and guest artists at the Hollins Theatre Institute throughout the year.
Musical Theatre training at Hollins is directly connected to the excellent artistic staff at MMT, with professional artists providing classroom instruction at Hollins and at MMT. Audition and performance opportunities are available, and performance internships give Hollins students the chance to work with professional performers while earning academic credit.
Undergraduate Internships. Hollins students have the opportunity to complete internships throughout the year, while obtaining academic credit.
Post-graduate apprenticeships. Upon graduation, Hollins students can apply for a paid professional apprenticeship at MMT, allowing them to begin their careers in the city where they trained.
The CenterPieces Reading Series is a showcase for minimally produced staged readings that happen over the lunch hour on the Waldron Stage of Mill Mountain Theatre on the 2nd Wednesday of every month. Grab some friends, bring a lunch, see a play!
