Tashera Pravato

Tashera Pravato is a Columbia-based actor and designer with a love for bold storytelling and theater that creates connection. A company member at Trustus Theatre, she recently made her assistant directing debut with Clyde's and has appeared in People, Places & Things, Down in the Holler, and Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play. Her work also includes costume design for Blues for an Alabama Sky and producing the short film It Takes a Village. A U.S. Army veteran, Tashera is passionate about stories that make space for voices, experiences, and joy too often pushed to the margins. She is proud to support new work through Jasper's Play Right Project and Columbia's vibrant arts community. Offstage, she's mom to two brilliant daughters who remind her why stories matter.

Bonita Peeples

Bonita Peeples had the great fortune of sharing the stage earlier this year with our esteemed playwright in The Nia Co./Columbia Children's Theatre collaboration of Wiley and the Hairy Man. In 2019, they also worked together on Harlem South: A View Through The Lens (Live at the CMA), a jazz and theatrical celebration of photographer, Richard Smauel Roberts.

Over the years, Bonita has been an actor of stage and screen, singer, forensic actor, teaching artist, and adjudicator for the Richland One Visual and Performing Arts Dept. However, her greatest role is that of Momma to Bryce and Braylen.

The Counting Table

A Play by DK Turner

Premiere Staged Reading

Sunday September 13th at 4 pm

Columbia Music Festival Association

914 Pulaski Street

Reserve your seat now!

In this sixth installment of the Jasper Play Right Project, 2026’s winning playwright D. K. Turner invites the reader and the viewer into one of the most intimate settings in the life of a family—the dinner table. But like most tables sitting in kitchens throughout the American South, this table serves many functions, one of which is a place to reconcile expectations and interpretations of the past and the future. The Counting Table is the story of how one extended Carolina family comes to terms with the legacy of both responsibilities and worldly possessions. Pull up a chair to Mama Rut’s table. The cornbread is cooling and the rice is starting to steam.

Read about cast members Marilyn Matheus, Samuel McWhite, and Michael Mykkel in an earlier post.

2026 Jasper Play right Project Winner D.K. Turner!

The Jasper Project is delighted to congratulate Columbia theatre artist D. K. Turner who is the winner of our 2026 Play Right Project for his original play, The Counting Table!

In its sixth year, Jasper’s Play Right Project (formerly known as our Play Right Series) was created to help enlighten and empower audiences with information about the process involved in creating theatrical arts, while at the same time engineering and increasing opportunities for SC theatre artists to create and perform new works.

The keystone of the project is an open call for new and original plays written by South Carolina playwrights. Submitted scripts are sent to a panel of judges who select the one play that stands out above the rest. During the summer immediately following selection, Jasper invites community members to join us as Community Producers who meet with the cast and crew of the winning play four Sunday afternoons to learn more about how a play makes its way from the page to the stage.

In September, the winning play is produced to the “staged reading” level of development, published in book form, and filed with the US Library of Congress.

The public is invited to attend the performance and honor the Community Producers who make the project possible.

Deon "DK" Turner is a Columbia, SC-based writer, actor, and photographer. He is currently completing his MFA in Acting at the University of South Carolina. When not performing at USC, Trustus Theatre, or with The NiA Company, he develops original scripts and works across the state as a professional photographer. Turner’s writing explores the economics of Black South Carolina life and relationships to land, labor, faith, and institutional systems. "The Counting Table" is his first submission to the Play Right Project and is part of a larger collection of South Carolina plays currently in development. He is grateful for this opportunity to work with Jasper and thanks his family, friends, and the artists who have impacted and continue to shape his journey.

Become a Community Producer!

Jasper is now seeking Community Producers interested in participating in this process.

Community Producers are community members and theatre aficionados invested in the development process and supportive of the state’s literary and theatre talent. In exchange for a modest financial contribution Jasper Community Producers will be offered insider views of the steps and processes inherent in creating theatrical art by attending readings, rehearsals, informative talks, and presentations, including conversations with the actors, director, playwright, stage manager, costumer, and sound and lighting designer. 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.

Your options:

Community Producer - $250

Actor Sponsor - $500

Director Sponsor - $750

Play Sponsor - $1000

Your name, no matter what level you sponsor, will appear in the published book The Counting Table as a Producer, as well as in the playbill for the performance, and NEW THIS YEAR in an article in the fall issue of

Jasper Magazine!

Read more about the Community Producer Schedule below!

Play Right Project 2026 Community Producer Schedule

4:00—5:30

SUNDAY, JULY 12: Introducing DK Turner and The Counting Table

Meet the 2026 Play Right Series Winning Playwright DK Turner and enjoy the first-ever read-through of his The Counting Table with the full cast and crew, as well as other Community Producers. This is called a “Table Read” – see? You’re learning already!

SUNDAY, JULY 26: The Playwright's Craft

A conversation with the Playwright, DK Turner, and special guest playwrights about their plays and what they have coming up.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 9: Stagecraft: Acting and Directing

The cast & crew of The Counting Table explain the process of assembling a production and preparing for a role, with sample scenes from The Counting Table.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 23: Sneak Peek Week!

Sit in on an actual rehearsal of The Counting Table and learn more about the process as actors rehearse and sharpen sample scenes in anticipation of the Big Event.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13: The Big Event – Staged Reading of The Counting Table

Take your reserved seat for the Premiere Staged Reading of The Counting Table by DK Turner at) and enjoy a special, brand-new post-show celebration designed especially for DK Turner’s The Counting Table!

More About the Cast of The Counting Table by DK Turner (& ticket info, too!)