Keep on the Sunny Side - Peter Fenton Playwright Newsletter, May 2026

This blog post also lives on my Substack.

I think May has always been my favorite month of the year. In my neck of the woods in Pennsylvania, the weather is usually warm enough to start ditching the jacket and it’s a time of big moments: college graduations, proms, anticipation of summer.

I’m anticipating some cool stuff in May 2026, and I’d love to keep you up to date with all things Peterfentonland!

Dan Park is Taking Manhattan:

CORONATION Heading to New York City!

Let’s not bury the lede: I’m incredibly excited to share that my teen comedy-as-social satire play, CORONATION, has been selected for the Spotlight New Works Fest of staged readings in New York City July 1 & 2 at the Chain Theatre in Midtown (it’s a very short walk from Penn Station)!

Back in April, I hired Brooke Hall as my stage manager and ran auditions and callbacks for the two boys in the show and through that process, got connected with many talented actors. Ultimately, I selected Simon Huynh for the lead role of DAN and Derek Crosby for the role of BRYAN. They join Yuliana Sleme (MARIA), Monah Yancy (MRS. LOWRY), Sophrena Swanson (JANELLE), and Blue Colacchio (CANDICE), all of whom I have worked with before on these or other roles for this reading.

Tickets to this festival are completely free. As one of my closest supporters, I wanted to make sure you got the chance to get in on this reading if you can make it to New York this July. You can reserve your free ticket here:

CORONATION Tickets

And—while this reading is free to attend, I want to be transparent it is not free to produce. I do have full creative freedom and with that comes full financial responsibility. I believe the value of a ticket to the staged reading of CORONATION would be $15. If you feel so inclined to sponsor the value of a ticket or two to the staged reading, I would be incredibly appreciative. Our GoFundMe is linked here:

CORONATION Crowdfund

And Speaking of Free Staged Readings:

I’m Directing Another One from a Fellow Playwright!

I first read my dear friend and fellow playwright Amanda Murray Cutalo’s script IN THEATER AND WAR about a year ago and I fell in love with this modern farce set in a world she and I both know all too well: Community Theater.

IN THEATER AND WAR is about a Broadway director who fell from grace like Scott Rudin. In something of a professional redemption tour, she comes in to direct at a community theater on its last legs. She discovers the storm coming for her when she crosses the matriarch of the Sunny Side Up Players. Everything comes down to this production: the director’s career, the company’s future—and all is fair in theater and war.

IN THEATER AND WAR premiered a few years ago as a student production at the school Amanda teaches at, but since then, she has done some great revision work and it’s absolutely ready to go out for a new test drive.

Plays aren’t really meant to live on a page, they need to be heard out loud and in front of an audience. This script has so much potential and I’m really excited for Amanda to have the experience of seeing an all-adult cast bring her script to life.

The reading will be on June 12 at Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart in Princeton, New Jersey. Tickets are free!

IN THEATER AND WAR Tickets

“I’m Mr. Manager!”

(Well, No, We Just Say Manager)

I always know exactly how long I’ve worked at Passage Theatre Company because my niece was born in August 2023, the exact week I started. My title has changed a few times, but my work has pretty much always been the same: “I pick fonts and colors.”

It’s obviously a bit more involved than that, but I have grown considerably as a designer, and it seems Passage Theatre has taken note of that. Effective as of mid-April, I have now been promoted from Marketing Associate to Marketing Manager. This “day job” of mine in Trenton, working with a majority Black-led AEA theatre company, has grown me so much as an artist, designer, and as a human being.

No matter how long I stay with Passage, I’m immensely honored for the time I’ve spent with them and now for the chance to be a manager within the company.

Going Back to Neverland:

Revisions, Restructure, and an Exclusive Zoom Reading

Back in April, my dark comedy young adult Peter Pan show I THINK WE’RE LOST premiered at Theatre Exile with the Pier Players Theatre Company. Attending opening night was magical. It was one of the only times I can say I genuinely had fun watching something I’ve written.

I so appreciate the work producer Chelsea Cylinder did to pull the show together, Julianne Kastner did to promote it, Madison Caudullo did in interpreting the script, and the entire cast and design team did to execute the vision of Draft 7 as it stood for the last year.

With that being said, I did come away from the show knowing the script needed work. Seeing it up on its feet, I realized two things: first, the play was about 20 minutes longer than it needed to be; and second, I realized who the main character of this play was. The protagonist of this play is CONNOR, who in Draft 7 was not introduced until halfway through Act One.

I’d planned to spend April writing a radical revision of one of my older plays, but I pivoted immediately to work on a major rewrite of I THINK WE’RE LOST. I cut so much padding in the script, and the entire first Act is restructured with a new frame story, carried by CONNOR. The Neverland backstory is now also shared with the audience more or less in chronological order (with only one key piece of backstory presented as a flashback toward the end of the play, where it has always been).

I’m organizing an exclusive Zoom reading of my “Draft 8 BETA”, intentionally choosing actors for this particular reading who have never read these roles before.

As you are someone following along on my journey, I’d love to have you in the room listening if you’d like to be there. It’s happening on a weeknight within ten days of when I initially post this. I’m hoping to have a good discussion about what’s working and how the play can be further improved. If you want to listen in, all you have to do is get in touch.

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And that’s all she wrote for May 2026! Thank you so much for joining me on this crazy little thing I’m calling a career. I can feel the momentum building, and it’s because there are people like you who want to hear what I have to say. I’m so grateful for you.

Much love,

Peter Fenton