
atlanta’s home for original plays & musicals by top emerging writers
Photo: RATHSKELLER, A Musical Elixir by Brianna Kothari Barnes at SheATL 2023.
NOW CASTING
We’re now seeking Atlanta-based actors for the SheATL Festival shows! Read the casting notice here, and then submit your materials for consideration.
After an intensive selection process, we’re so excited to unveil the three plays and one musical that will hit the SheATL stage this summer. All new, original, and by women, trans, and non-binary writers.
SEPTEMBER 3-7, 2025
7 STAGES THEATRE
MEET THE SHOWS
honeyhole
By Erin Davis
A new play about ‘togetherness’
In the hotsweatyheat of one southern summer, Lou, a young queer beauty queen meets Ellis, the new girl in town.
Lou begins to realize that the pageant girl life her mama always wanted might not be her ticket out of their few-stoplight-gossipy-sorta-town. in fact, IT might just be the thing that’s holding her back – from becoming who she is, what she wants to be, and doing what she dreams of: hiking the Appalachian Trail like her father once did.
Thursday, September 4 at 8:00pm
Saturday, September 6 at 12:00pm
last song on earth, a new musical
Book by Danielle Llevada
Music by Kyu Park
Lyrics by Riley Glick
A new folk-pop musical about daring to find, in each other, what happens after The End
Five years after The End, ONE and TWO—a meticulous survivor and a reckless wanderer— unexpectedly collide. Stumbling through post-apocalyptic laughter, grief, and fleeting hope, they form an unlikely friendship. But as the worlds they once knew—and the promises they made—unravel, their bond begins to fracture. At a crossroads, each must decide what to surrender to move forward…and whether that future is worth facing alone. In Last Song on Earth, a new folk-pop musical by Llevada, Park, & Glick, harmony rises from catastrophe and dares us to find, in each other, what comes next.
Friday, September 5 at 8:00pm
Saturday, September 6 at 3:30pm
mariposa
By Britney Lizbeth Quiroz
A magical play empowering first generation Latinas to combat alcoholism
Mariposa, a hopeful Mexican-American, first generation college student flies back to her community in the South Side of Chicago for summer break. Disconnected from her inner child, Mariposa–with community friends–faces the traditional chains of alcoholism, toxic masculinity, gender roles, and patriarchal beliefs that threaten to bind her to repeat the same abusive, generational cycle that her immigrant parents carry.
Mariposa is a magical story that empowers first generation Latinas to unapologetically reimagine what their life could be like outside of the heteronormative beliefs that bound them to lose themselves.
Saturday, September 6 at 8:00pm
Sunday, September 7 at 3:30pm
pass the okra
By Zahria Moore
A messy, post-Roe V. Wade coming-of-age play
Monica and her cousin Kim grew up the best of friends. They played dolls together, talked about boys, and ran from their grandma’s okra.
As they grow up, Monica and Kim grow apart and seek joy in new ways. At twenty-somethin’, Monica dreams about leaving St. Louis for NYC. But, her plans of living “happily forever 21” are paused when she learns she’s pregnant. Since abortion is abolished, she must decide whether to have the baby or seek care outside of Missouri. With a little help from Kim and a multi-generational secret passed down through her grandma, Monica finds a way to safely and discreetly make her choice.
Tuesday, September 3 at 8:00pm
Saturday, September 6 at 12:00pm
THE FESTIVAL PASS: SEE MORE AND SAVE $15!
Multiple shows look good to you? We’ve got your back! Get the 2-Show Festival Pass and see two different shows in the Festival for less.
FESTIVAL SCHEDULE
TICKET INFORMATION
All in-person performances will take place at 7 Stages Theatre, in the Backstage Theater. Learn more about the venue HERE.
There is a wheelchair accessible ramp leading to the theater from the main lobby. There are options seating options with no steps and space for wheelchair users. We are also happy to reserve seats for patrons with low-vision and hearing loss. The bathrooms are wheelchair accessible and gender-neutral. If you have any access needs, please email us at ATLHouseManager@shenycarts.org.
When you purchase a ticket, you will have a receipt emailed to you automatically. We will also send you a reminder email the day before the show. All tickets will be held at the box office under the purchaser’s name.
Digital tickets will also be available soon for $5! You can watch the recorded performance of any of our Festival shows from home between September 9 and 16.
Artist Directory
Are you a stage manager, director, choreographer, musical director, or designer? Add your name to our Artist Directory. We’ll send the Festival writers this list of artists as a reference to help them fill in any blanks on their production teams.
Pro Tip: Write “Festival Producer” or “Festival Volunteer” under “what’s your specialty” if you’re interested in volunteering for the Festival as a whole!

Get a sneak peek behind the scenes of the SheATL shows by following us on Instagram!

Frequently Asked Questions
When will submissions open for the 2025 Festivals?
Script submissions will open in October 2024 for the 2024 SheLA, SheATL, SheDFW, & SheNYC Theater Festivals. They’ll be due by November 11.
At that time, the application will be live at www.SheNYCArts.org/submissions.
What is it like to do my show in the Festival?
Once you get accepted into the Festival, you’ll want to start thinking about a director for your show. We can help with that, and other creative team roles, by sharing our Artist Directory.
Next, casting! Work with your director to get your show cast, and hire any other creative team members you might need.
Then you’ll spend the 1-2 months before your performance date rehearsing and getting your show ready. Simply put, you handle your show in the rehearsal room, while our staff gets the theater ready. Our Producers and Production Manager will be checking in often to get information from you and keep you on deadline.
Our Festival staff loads all our equipment into the theater the day before tech starts. You’ll have an assigned 5-hour tech slot in which you must load in your set & costumes, do a cue-to-cue so our Lighting Designer can cue your lights, and then do a dress run of your show.
After that, you have 2-3 performances scheduled by our Production Manager. You have 15 minutes to load in your show before each performance, and 15 minutes to load out after. We handle everything related to Front of House – ticketing, box office, ushers, etc. – so all you have to worry about is what’s happening on stage.
Finally, we close the Festival with a closing night party and awards ceremony!
What makes us different from other theater festivals?
Our goal is to make this an inclusive, productive, and affordable environment to see your work produced in full. We pride ourselves on providing more for less – more support, supplies, and learning opportunities without the prohibitive submission & participation fees that other festivals require.
Also, we’re working to create a network of professionals and artists that are devoted to promoting the voices of women & gender-marginalized professionals in theater — not just put up your show and never hear from you again. We have meetings where all of the writers gather together to mingle, and hope that the other writers and artists involved in the festival will become lifelong friends, mentors, and supporters.
What are we looking for?
You’ve got an awesome show. We’ve got an awesome festival. It’s like a match made in heaven.
We look simply for shows that are high-quality and written by people of marginalized genders. We like to have a good mix of genres in each festival – plays, musicals, comedies, dramas, experimental works, and more. We also are partial to shows with themes that fit our mission of women in leadership. But at the end of the day, we want to show the world that our playwrights produce high-quality work that deserves to be seen on Broadway and stages around the country – so, the number one factor in our decision-making is how well-written your show is.
Who can apply?
Any writer of a marginalized gender (including cis women, trans women, non-binary and gender non-conforming writers), or writing team that is at least 50% marginalized genders, is eligible to apply. We’re also taking adaptations that are directed or adapted by folks of marginalized genders, even if they were originally written by men. We only accept full-length shows for the Festival (no short plays), though note that there is a 2-hour run time limit for your performance.
What kind of shows can apply?
Musicals – musicals of any size, shape, and form are welcome to apply. Just keep in mind that 2-hour run time limit. You can submit a show that runs longer than that in its current form, as long as you’re okay with making some trims for the festival.
Plays – again, plays of any size, shape, and form are welcome to apply!
Adaptations – are you a woman director or adapter who wants to do a reverse-gender production of King Lear? We love that. Just make sure you are actually able to obtain the rights to your show (sometimes, special rights have to be obtained if you want to adapt or change gender roles), or better yet, take a public domain play.
How many shows are picked and how will we pick them?
We’re aiming to take 8 shows for our She NYC Summer Theater Festival, though we reserve the right to pick as little as 6 or as many as 9 depending on what the submission pool is like. For our She L.A. Summer Theater Festival, we’ll pick 5 shows. For Atlanta, we’ll pick 3-5.
We’re judging the shows based on two things: The quality of the writing, and the relevance to our mission. Mostly, we’re focused on giving marginalized writers the notoriety and publicity they deserve, so the subject matter of your show will only play into the judging if we have a really tight race between two shows. If we’ve got one slot left and two equally awesome shows, and one is about Napoleon and one is about Molly Pitcher, we’ll probably pick the Molly Pitcher one.
How does the selection process work?
You submit your scripts and application materials by the submission deadline. We pass your script around to a team of script readers, so each script will be read by at least three different people. The shows that get the highest ratings get passed along to the semi-final round, where they will be read by at least two more script readers, with the highest-scoring shows moving to the finalist round. Starting in February, we’ll be notifying people if they’re finalists on a rolling basis. From there, the finalists are read by our full staff, and we make our final decisions after an in-depth team discussion.
By April, all of our selected participants will be notified, and we can start getting to work!
If I submitted a show in the past, can I submit again?
You sure can! You can submit the same show again, particularly if you’ve revised it, or a new show. If you’ve already had a show produced in the Festival, you can also submit a new show for this year.
Will we get feedback on our submissions?
Because we don’t charge a submission fee and get such a large volume of submissions, we unfortunately don’t have the bandwidth to offer feedback on each script.

The SheATL Summer Theater Festival is funded in part by a generous grant from The National Endowment for the Arts.