2026 Spectacular Tournament of Playwrights Finals
Sunday, Nov. 08 | 7:00pm ET (6:00pm CT)
The Acorn is thrilled to announce the return of our highly anticipated 10-minute playwriting competition, The Spectacular Tournament of Playwrights! The Top 5 plays will be performed by local theater groups on our stage – and the audience will vote for the winner!
Meet the 2025 Finalists:
Zu Zu’s Petals
Sequim, Washington
Living in the fog, rain, and suspiciously aggressive lavender fields of Sequim, WA, Julie has been writing for a long while. That includes thinking about writing, determining to write, promising to write, swearing to write. Her work blends occasionally sharp comedy, awkward humanity, and the kind of dialogue that makes actors say, “Wait… people actually talk like this?”
Julie is drawn to stories about flawed people making terrible decisions with complete confidence — often while trapped in very small rooms.
When not writing, she can usually be found staring at a half-finished script, mumbling to herself this draft will “definitely be shorter,” right before adding three new scenes and an unnecessary emotional breakdown. She remains deeply committed to theater despite overwhelming evidence that it is an emotionally unstable career path.
Poll Tax for Sista Blu
Katy, Texas
Clarence Holmes, Jr. is a native New Orleanian who has lived in Houston, TX since Hurricane Katrina. While he ardently taught composition and literature at the university level in Louisiana, he actually wanted to be writing for the stage and screen. Now that he is retired, he is doing just that. Given the recognition his projects are receiving, he wishes even more he had started writing a long time ago – but better late than never. While his primary goal is to write dramatic stories that show audiences (African American youth, especially) how minority members in past generations have fought to achieve personhood (the bridge in his play "Bridge in the Distance" is Pettus Bridge and the theme is every vote counts), he also plans to write stories about minority members’ contemporary struggles—political and social. His ultimate goal is to write an updated version of Alex Haley’s 1976 "Roots."
Manifest Destiny
Astoria, New York
Emmy Potter is a New York-based writer, actor, and director by way of the Midwest. Her plays include Pas de Trois, Sotto Voce (2026 Inkslinger Playwriting Contest Semi-Finalist), All Downhill, Manifest Destiny (2026 ACTF Gary Garrison National 10-min Play Award Finalist), In the Hot Seat (Semi-Finalist, Fall 2025 Queens Short Play Festival) The Wayward Women (Finalist and Winner of Best Director, Winter 2025 Queens Short Play Festival), and Maneater (Players Theater Short Play Festival 2019). Her monologue "A Lighthouse" was selected as part of Volume 4 of the Playground Experiment's Faces of America Festival and Monologue Anthology in 2021. In addition to plays, she has written for various online entertainment outlets and a coffee table book for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel from Abrams Books. She holds a B.M. in Music Theatre from Oklahoma City University and is currently pursuing an MFA in playwriting at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
Hope & Greg
Fargo, North Dakota
Emily Beck is a writer, horror film fanatic, and nonprofit director based in North Dakota. She's had a passion for writing her entire life, but has only recently found the nerve to start sharing her work. In the last two years, Emily's short plays have been produced at a handful of festivals including GreenMan Theatre's "8 to the Bar" festival where "Hope & Greg" took home the 2025 Audience Choice Award. Emily lives in Fargo with her husband Adam and their collection of Stephen King books.
Exit Interview
Winfield, Illinois
An award-winning Midwest playwright, John David Westby writes about reinvention, regret, and the secrets we keep. His plays range from original works to inventive and quirky adaptations of classics. His writing blends emotional depth with sharp humor and absurdity.
Most recently his play Dear Abigail/Dear John, an adaptation of the letters of John and Abigail Adams, was produced by Stageworks Theatre Company in Nebraska. His play, Artifact, was a 2026 Semi-Finalist for Dayton Playhouse FutureFest of New Plays and for the Ojai Playwrights Conference. His short play Breakage will be published by River and South Literary Magazine in June.
John has worked with theatres throughout the Midwest and the United States, including Chicago Dramatists, American Theatre of Actors, and Victory Gardens Theatre. He earned an MFA from Lesley University and is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Chicago Dramatists, The Playwrights Center, and New Play Exchange.
With the help of local theater groups and directors, we will be bringing the finalists’ work to life on The Acorn stage, bringing in stage talent from our corner of Southwest Michigan, and concluding with an audience vote to determine which one of these playwrights will win our 2026 competition!
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