As we move toward July 20th and the first meeting of the Jasper Project’s 2025 Play Right Series Community Producers, we’re excited to announce the cast for Ryan Steven’s brand new original play, Busted Open!
Directed by Jane Turner Peterson, the cast of Busted Open includes the following —
Sunset: Ella Riley
Artemis: Kristin Cobb
Amy Bell: Maggie Baker
Jane Richmond: Allison Allgood
Painkiller: Beth DeHart
Rachel “Victory” Vance: Zanna Mills
Phil Kirkland: Clayton King
Trevor Richmond: Josh Kern
We’re still assembling our 2025 roster of Community Producers and we’d love to have you join us!
On select Sunday afternoons this summer you are invited to join with the cast, crew, and fellow Community Producers for an enlightening and entertaining session that pulls back the curtains of theatre development and illuminates how a stageplay goes from page to stage. Your first session will offer you a private viewing of the first step in a play production, the Table Reading – the first time the cast of the winning play will read their parts together.
Subsequent sessions will focus on essential ingredients in the production of a successful staged reading, such as the stage manager’s job; props, lighting, blocking, and sound; unique insights from the director; how the actors prepare for their parts; playwright perceptions from this year and past projects; and an invitation to the dress rehearsal. In addition to your invitation to gather with the cast and crew every Sunday in July, each session will also feature exciting snacks and beverages. And many more surprises each week!
Finally, you’ll take your reserved, best-in-the-house seats to a ticketed staged reading.
But there’s more.
Your name will be included as a Community Producer on programs, posters, press releases, and other promotional materials as well as in the perfect bound book published by Muddy Ford Press and registered with the Library of Congress, and you will take home your own copies as a souvenir of your experience.
What is expected of Community Producers?
We hope you can make it to every exciting Sunday afternoon meeting, but we understand if you have to miss some. Each session will last from 90 – 120 minutes.
The financial commitment for a Community Producer is a minimum of $250 per person, but other sponsorships are also available and appreciated.
Our hope is that you will be so enlightened and inspired by this experience that you will become a diplomat of live theatre, fresh playwrights, and the Jasper Project and encourage your friends and colleagues to participate in live theatre themselves!
Play Right Series 2025 Community Producer Schedule
SUNDAY, JULY 20: Introducing Ryan Stevens and Busted Open
Meet the 2025 Play Right Series Winning Playwright Ryan Stevens and witness the Inaugural Table Reading of Busted Open
SUNDAY, AUGUST 3: The Art of Stagecraft
The cast & crew of Busted Open explain the process of preparing for a role and tricks of the trade to demystify some of the magic of the theatrical arts
SUNDAY, AUGUST 17: The Playwright's Craft
Learn about the processes of 4 award-winning playwrights including Ryan Stevens, Chad Henderson, Lonetta Thompson, and Colby Quick with your host Jon Tuttle, author of South Carolina Onstage, The Trustus Collection, and more
SUNDAY, AUGUST 31: Sneak Peek Week!
Be a fly on the proverbial stage wall among an intimate group of guests to watch a working rehearsal of Busted Open – see how far the cast has come since the first ever Table Reading just six weeks earlier
SUNDAY: SEPT 14: The Big Event – Staged Reading of Busted Open
Take your reserved seat for the Premiere Stage Reading of Busted Open by Ryan Stevens at Columbia Music Festival Association and enjoy a post-show champagne toast to the cast, crew, and creator of Busted Open!
Purpose of the Play Right Series
Empower and enlighten audiences by allowing them insider views of the steps and processes of creating theatre art by
Offering limited open table and stage readings of theatrical works as well as rehearsals of theatrical works to community members
Offering Community Producer opportunities to the community members by keeping production costs low and involving community assets already in place. In exchange for an established minimal financial contribution, Community Producers are invited to attend designated open readings and rehearsals, informal presentations by cast and crew, and opening night performances with producer credits. The result: Community Producers learn about the extensive process of producing a play and become invested personally in the production and success of the play and its cast and crew, thereby becoming diplomats of theatre arts.
Increase opportunities for theatre artists to create and participate in new art without the necessity of being attached to an existing theatre organization by
Offering a space and arts engineering for playwrights to workshop their plays and one-off theatre arts experiences and potentially have them produced
Putting out calls for new works of theatre art from new and existing playwrights, as well as work opportunities for on-stage and backstage theatre artists.
Provide more affordable and experimental theatre arts experiences for new and emerging theatre artists and their audiences; thereby expanding cultural literacy and theatre arts appreciation in the
