SMU Graduate Student Jonathan Norton almost didn’t enter TeCo’s annual New Play Competition this year. His experience with the contest last year had shaken his confidence, and if it wasn’t for the prodding of Artistic Director Teresa Coleman Wash he might have passed up on this opportunity.

His decision to enter prompted his new one-act play “The Last Supper” and made him $1,000 richer when he took home the prize.

TeCo Theatrical Productions is located in the Bishop Arts district and is focused on cultivating and producing multicultural works. This competition is in its ninth year and gives regional and brand-new playwrights the opportunity to submit and stage their work.

Audiences are then asked to vote for their favorite and the overall votes are tallied at the end of the three week run.

Norton submitted a dark comedy about a mother and son who sit down to dinner, only to have Jesus join them.

“I was on my lunch break from work turning over this idea that I’d had for a long time,” Norton said. “This competition became a fun way to revisit something I’ve been turning over for a while.”

Norton completed his undergraduate studies at Marymount University and was hired by Allison Tweedy to be an administrative assistant at SMU and is now pursuing a master’s in liberal studies.

He had taken Gretchen Smith’s playwriting class as part of his MLS program and is currently a semi-finalist in the Eugene O’Neil Theater Center’s National Playwright Conference.

He acheived this status with a play entitled “My Tidy List of Terrors,” which will be produced in its entirety later this year at the South Dallas Cultural Center.

He said that his experience at TeCo has been incredibly encouraging as he considers future endeavors.

“I was so incredibly nervous going into the experience,” Norton said. “But it wasn’t even about the prize for me, I was just happy I could redeem myself with the audience.”