Introducing the Jasper Project's 2025 Play Right Series Winning Playwright – Ryan Stevens

It’s the 5th season for Jasper’s innovative project, the Play Right Series and we couldn’t be happier to announce that Ryan Stevens is our 2025 winner.

A native of Greenville and a 2020 graduate of USC with an MFA in Playwrighting, Stevens received his MA in Theatre in 2017 and BA in English in 2015, also from USC. Currently a Playwriting Fellow at Emery University, Stevens will commute from Atlanta during the upcoming summer to workshop his play, Busted Open, alongside a group of Midlands-area Community Producers, a process  that will ultimately lead the play to the staged reading phase of development. In addition to this performance at summer’s end, Jasper will also publish his manuscript and register it with the US Library of Congress.

The purpose of Jasper’s Play Right Series is threefold: to empower and enlighten audiences by offering insider views of the process of creating theatre art via the roles of Community Producers; to increase opportunities for theatre artists to create and participate in new art without being attached to a theatre organization; and, to provide more affordable and experimental theatrical experiences for emerging theatre artists and their audiences.

This year’s Community Producers will witness the first ever table reading of Stevens’ new play, Busted Open, as well as attend a private rehearsal and informal presentations by the playwright, director, cast and crew, and ultimately be celebrated for their financial and personal contributions (minimum investment $250) to the project at the staged reading premiere of Busted Open in late summer.

Previous Community Producers, several of whom have re-invested year after year, have included community members like Bill Schmidt, Ed Madden, Linda Khoury, Paul Leo, and James and Kirkland Smith. Additional financial support has also been generously provided by folks like Jack McKenzie, Hunter Boyle, Robin Gottlieb, and many more.

Judges for this year’s competition were Linda Khoury, executive director of the SC Shakespeare Co.; Stan Brown, professor of acting at Northwestern University and professional actor who recently enjoyed his Broadway debut in Water for Elephants; and, Jayce Tromsness, a longtime multifaceted SC theatre artist.

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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

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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   

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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

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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

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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!

For more information  about the 2025 Play Right Series schedule and Community Producer opportunities please visit the Projects section of our website JasperProject.org.

PREVIEW - Blithe Spirit at USC

Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward, and directed by Stan Brown, opens this weekend and serves as a close to Theatre South Carolina’s 2015 Mainstage Season. Blithe Spirit serves as the first Coward production at Theatre South Carolina since Present Laughter was staged in February of 2012. Both Blithe Spirit is a lighthearted and farcical comedy that follows author Charles Condomine (Josh Jeffers), who invites a medium, Madame Arcati (Marybeth Gorman), to his house one evening to conduct a séance in order to study her for his next novel. Charles, wholeheartedly believing the medium to be a hoax, is proven very wrong when he finds himself haunted by his first wife, Elvira (Candace Thomas). He is then caught in a supernatural love-triangle between his living wife, Ruth (Nicole Dietze), and the strong-willed Elvira.

Director Stan Brown explains, “I'm intrigued by two questions the play asks. As we move from one relationship to another, what “ghosts” do we take with us? I also believe…as the play implies, that genuine love is eternal.” And despite the show being nearly 75 years old, that is what makes the show still accessible to modern audiences. “Mr. Coward wrote Blithe Spirit in 1941, yet the story deals with what "we" would consider contemporary relationship issues. Its timelessness marks it as a classic”, explains Brown.

Coward originally wrote Blithe Spirit in the midst of World War II as a means of escapism. Audiences could go to the theatre for a few hours and enjoy a few laughs together as a way to temporarily flee the problems facing their lives.  And that is something about theatre that will always be relevant. Whether your problems are large or small, everyone can use a good laugh every once in a while. “…There's no reason why it can't be an escape for us during today's dark realities.  My hope is that our audiences have fun and forget their every day burdens for the two hours they're with us,” Josh Jeffers says, “Stan has encouraged us to play because ‘they're called plays for a reason,’ … It's always fun to see what people bring into rehearsal. We've spent a lot of time laughing.”

So join Theatre South Carolina for a few laughs with its last Mainstage show of the year! Show times for are 8pm, Wednesdays through Saturdays, with additional 3pm matinees on Sunday, November 15and Saturday, November 21.  Tickets for the production are $12 for students, $16 for USC faculty/staff, military personnel and seniors (60+) and $18 for the general public.  Tickets can be purchased in advance by calling 803-777-2551 or by visiting the Longstreet Theatre box office, which is open Monday-Friday, 12:30pm-5:30pm, beginning Friday, November 6.  The Longstreet Theater box office is located at 1300 Greene St.  Drayton Hall Theatre is located at 1214 College St.

-- Rebecca Shrom

For more information about Blithe Spirit or the theatre program at the University of South Carolina, contact Kevin Bush by phone at 803-777-9353 or via email at bushk@mailbox.sc.edu.