New plays.  New writers.  New voices from the South.  Now in its eleventh year, the New South Play Festival is Horizon’s unique celebration of plays from, for, and about the contemporary South.  The Festival has become a much-anticipated event at Horizon – the most fertile, busy, and exciting artistic experience we undertake all year.  Horizon’s strives to be a dynamic leader in contemporary theatre in the Southeast, and with the New South Festival, Horizon is at the forefront of developing and showcasing new work by Southern writers about who we are today in the New South.  The Festival has received significant local and national recognition from the media and funders.  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has hailed the Festival as a “crucible [that] feeds writers’ creative fires,” and Creative Loafing has touted that it “finds and defines Southern plays.”

The South we explore in the Festival is not the one of the past, but the one of today – in all its diversity and contradiction.  We seek out writers and plays that speak to our urban Southern audiences and that expand the world’s view of our cosmopolitan South. “Horizon’s New South Festival is about expanding the diversity of voices coming out of the contemporary South,” says Co-Artistic Director Lisa Adler.  “The world thinks of the South in terms of civil war and civil rights.  We who live here experience a complex place with many perspectives, cultures and people.  We hope the New South Festival and its writers reflect this true new South.”

The 2009 New South Play Festival includes the events below: