Step into a world where joyful childhood memories spark tales of personal self-discovery. Those are the core themes of this year’s ScriptWorks OUT OF INK 2025: In Step. This varied collection of ten-minute plays reveals ScriptWorks members' creative renderings of three mandatory script ingredients that inspired the Weekend Fling 48-hour writing event in the fall.

This year, director/playwright Christopher Fontanes, actor and long-time Out of Ink ensemble member Gina Houston, and dancer/choreographer Kelsey Oliver provided the following ingredients:

Be inspired by a joyful memory from your childhood
Include a character finding their true purpose
Include synchronistic footwork

At the end of the Weekend Fling, the plays were read in a ScriptWorks Salon. A selection committee consisting of playwright and stage manager, Maxine Dillon; multi-hyphenate theatre artist and scholar, Lisa Flanagan; and Bottle Alley founder and Vortex Associate Artistic Director, Chris Fontanes, chose eight plays for production in Out of Ink from the thirty-plus plays that were submitted.

The scripts were written by:

David DuBose, Ava Love Hanna, Sandy Maranto, Tristan Young Mercado, Briandaniel Oglesby, David Ritch, Kleo James Ryan, and Sarah Saltwick. The plays will be performed by an ensemble of actors comprised of Roxy Becker, Zac Carr, Trey Deason, David DuBose, Carl Gonzales, Alani Henry, Chelsea Manasseri, Alex Maranto, Kennedy Thompson, Morgan Urbanovsky, and Sweet Van Loan. They’ll be directed by Lowell Bartholomee, Carl Gonzales, Lacey Cannon Gonzales, Ellie McBride, Christina J. Moore, and Sharon Sparlin. Designers for the project are Lowell Bartholomee (sound/video), Pam Friday (costumes), Amy Lewis (lights), and Monroe Oxley (sets/props).

ABOUT SCRIPTWORKS

ScriptWorks is a playwright-driven organization that seeks to promote the craft of dramatic writing and to protect the playwright's integrity by encouraging playwright initiative and harnessing collective potential. This project is supported in part by the City of Austin Economic Development Department, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Contact the host of OUT OF INK 2025: In Step