SMU students and playwrights, from left, Jessica Andrewartha, Nathaniel French, Micah Figeroua, Joel Heinreich, Meredith Alloway, and Nick Cains (not pictured (TAYLOR HENRY/The Daily Campus)

Tuesday doesn’t just mark the beginning of a new month, it is also the beginning of the “New Visions, New Voices” playwriting festival. This is year 17 for Meadows’ annual event and due to an abundance of talent the protocol has changed.

Previously, this festival would showcase two or three student works, taking the script from its first read-through to full production with costumes, lights and a full cast. But this year, with earlier performance dates and seven unique plays, Gretchen Smith, who serves as the head of theater studies as well as the facilitator of this event, knew she’d have to make some changes.

“This wasn’t what we planned when he started the year,” Smith said. “I saw it as a very exciting opportunity from the beginning. It’s a good way to give all seven plays and seven playwrights the chance to be challenged and see their work brought to life.”

In order to accomplish this, each play will be produced as a staged reading, with minimal design elements and a talk-back after every performance, which the audience will be encouraged to participate in. Several working professionals are also taking part in the process, some as directors of the student work and some as actors.

The casting process was also different than usual, using an ensemble of 25 actors who will all be in two separate shows.

The plays range in content from Nick Cain’s play about a young boy dealing with the question “How to be Black” to Meredith Alloway’s play about an American spy undercover in Berlin who falls in love with a cabaret singer, “Lilli Marlene.”

For Nathaniel French’s play “Meltdown,” local director Rene Moreno has stepped in to participate in the process, as well as local actor and SMU alumnus Michael Federico, who happens to a “New Visions” alum as well. Moreno has found the process to be a good way to get in touch with the young, up-and-coming artists.

“The better I understand where they’re coming from, the better I get at understanding where the art form might be headed,” Moreno said. “I learn from them as much, if not more than they do from me.”

Moreno and Smith both see the focus of this festival as allowing the playwright, the cast and the audience to really hear the script, in order to see its improvement through both the rehearsal process and the performance dates.

“This is the best way to give the students a professional quality experience,” Smith said. “At the end of the process, the script will come out at its best – after a lot of rewrites.”

The plays will run over the course of 11 days in the Margo Jones Theatre receiving one or two performances each.

This is an opportunity to see your fellow students practice their art form, as well as contribute your feedback at the talkbacks after each show.

“I would love to see lots and lots of students come and give feedback,” Smith said.