Greater Lafayette Playwrights showcase new works for public, each other
‘This is the place where playwrighting is happening in Indiana.’ Plus, why you'll see paving work on Creasy Lane this spring and summer. Purdue students push for grace on Election Day.
Support for this edition comes from Purdue’s Presidential Lecture Series. Purdue University invites the Greater Lafayette community to the Presidential Lecture Series featuring bestselling science writer and documentarian Timothy Ferris on Feb. 26 at 6 p.m. in Stewart Center’s Fowler Hall. The conversation, part of Purdue’s yearlong America250 celebration, will explore how science has shaped liberty and democratic societies. This event is free and open to the public, with a general admission ticket required. Reserve your free ticket at https://am.ticketmaster.com/purdue/buy/pls0226.
Today’s featured story comes from Tim Brouk, the man behind BiL’s weekly Tim’s Picks.
GREATER LAFAYETTE PLAYWRIGHTS SHOWCASE NEW WORKS FOR PUBLIC, EACH OTHER
By Tim Brouk / For Based in Lafayette
Scene 1
MatchBOX Coworking Studio, Downtown Lafayette. Morning.
STEVE MARTIN — not that Steve Martin but the former Lafayette comedic actor turned award-winning playwright — sits at a conference room table. He is soon joined by internationally published local playwright NEIL RADTKE. The men prepare for the bimonthly meeting of Greater Lafayette Playwrights, a group of writers that workshop new pieces, share new opportunities for publishing and help newer writers navigate how to write a good scene.
Greater Lafayette Playwrights formed in 2024, branching from Civic Theatre of Greater Lafayette playwriting classes and short play festivals featuring works written by local playwrights. In 2025, the group started sharing their newest works with the public. The readings at MatchBOX draw dozens of theater aficionados. The new pieces are read by actors while the writers collect notes and look for audience reactions. The next Greater Lafayette Playwrights reading will be at 7 p.m. April 1 at MatchBOX.
RADTKE
For our playwright group, we bounce things off each other and whatnot. But then to bring an audience in and have that opportunity to give it life to the audience and see what their reactions are helps us to refine our work and see what lands, what doesn’t land. And it’s just to get a chance to share it. I mean, you write to see it performed. You write to have it performed and that’s really what playwriting is — it’s written to be seen.
MARTIN
You get an actor’s point of view. You can have a line of dialogue and you think it makes perfect sense. And then the actor will say, “This is awfully alliterative and difficult to speak aloud.” An actor can say it’s not the best line of dialogue. And you realize that some things are more conversation than dialogue. Dialogue is all about advancing a plot, outlining character.
RADTKE
There’s a lot of us that are actors, too. I really liked reading my own monologue because it was a kind of a personal one that I had written. But then handing off what you’ve written to someone else and see their interpretation of it or how they deliver lines helps a lot.
KYLE BROWN, a local playwright and actor, walks into the room wearing a baseball cap and a bright blue “Jaws” T-shirt. His experience at Civic Theatre made his affiliation with Greater Lafayette Playwrights a natural one. BROWN has organized and chaired multiple playwrighting events at Civic over the last few years.
BROWN
Most of us probably wouldn’t have even started writing without the (Civic) play fests and stuff. I never would have written a play if it wasn’t something that was local for me to do.
I think creativity is bred through hearing other people’s works and getting that feedback because sometimes you can just write something and you’re like, “I don’t know what this is. I don’t know if it’s good. I don’t know if it’s bad. I don’t know where to take it.” But if you bring it in front of people that you know and they know your work and they kind of respect you and it’s all mutual, then it encourages you to write and to push limits, like Neil recently has been like, “I’m going to start writing stuff that I want to write, and then we’ll see what everyone else says about it instead of I’m writing for everyone.” I love that.
Scene 2
Most of the Greater Lafayette Playwrights have worked on-stage, off-stage, backstage and everywhere else around local Lafayette theater, primarily with Civic. However, performance is performance. Two newer members, SCOTT STARKEY and DEAN WHITLOCK, have performed live magic shows. ROBIN LEA PYLE even ran her own theater company, To the Rescue Theater, in West Virgina before returning to her hometown of Lafayette.
MARTIN
The more you know about theater in general, the better your scripts are.
BROWN
The synergies are helpful.
MARTIN
You understand better what actors can and can’t do, what designers are really good at and might have a little bit of struggle for. So, you don’t have to be an actor, a designer. But the more you know, the stronger your scripts become in my perspective — that’s just me.
RADTKE
The designer aspect is really key where it’s like, “Oh, I want to do this, this and this.” It’s like, “Well, would that be possible?” I’ve talked to enough lighting people to ask, “So here’s how I need to word this in the direction, because then the designer will know that this can be done,” or a designer will look at that and say, “We don’t have the Broadway budget to have that happen.” But yeah, the design aspect of it is definitely something where you can write better.
Scene 3
Members of the Greater Lafayette Playwrights have had their plays performed across the United States and even internationally, from Iowa to India. The Playwrights share how to get your play performed.
MARTIN
There are resources for playwrights online. There are groups online that will share submission opportunities, and you’ll get information about deadlines to submit, what different theaters or other organizations are looking for. And you just start cross-checking against your own plays and realize that if this theater is looking for a comedy with eight or more characters, all women. “Well, so much for me who only writes monologues with men.” But you start looking at those sites; you start looking at getting to those resources. You count on people generous enough to say, “By the way, guys, here’s an opportunity and read more about it here.” And then honestly, I think half the work is just sending out, sending out, sending out. You’re writing and you’re honing. But you also have to just hustle and just say, “OK, great. Today I found three different opportunities to send my monologue to.” Boom, boom, boom.
BROWN
If you have a 10% success rate, you’ve done really, really well. So, like, you expect rejection on 99 out of 100 you send out.
RADTKE
There’s a website called New Play Exchange where I post my works on, and I have actually gotten two, three productions because people have found my work on there. One was at West Texas A&M University. They found it, and they wanted to use it for this student’s final exam. They chose my script to produce for their final exam. His professor contacted me about the royalties and then they put it on.
BROWN
I actually started a whole spreadsheet last year because I hadn’t really started submitting until last year to other places outside of Civic. I submitted over 100 and I got seven produced.
STARKEY is newer to playwrighting, but he still landed a production in Austin, Texas, for a one-minute play festival.
STARKEY
It was completely different than I had imagined in my head, but it was amazing that they did it.
RADTKE explains the extra editing required for foreign theater markets. His “Saw” spoof, “Seen,” needed some revisions for an Australian production.
RADTKE
They actually changed some of my lines because, for instance, I referenced a sidewalk, but they call them footpaths, so I had to change it to that. And then I had something about rabid beavers, and they changed it to dingoes. They don’t have beavers in Australia
They sent me a video of the production, and it was so funny to hear it done in Australian accent.
While Pyle’s theater experience goes back decades, she finally found the right place to write. Between West Virginia and Lafayette, she made a stop in Bloomington, Indiana, where she struggled to find inspiration and fellow playwrights to work with.
PYLE
This does not exist in Bloomington. I thought it would be all “The arts! New work!” I get there — there’s no new work. There’s no collaboration. I was like, “Oh my God.” So, I come to Lafayette and see a show here and I was like, “Oh, wait a minute, I can feel it.” This is the place where playwrighting is happening in Indiana.
IF YOU GO/WHAT YOU CAN DO
The Greater Lafayette Playwrights will host a public event, title “Roman Candles,” at 7 p.m. April 1 at MatchBOX Studios, 17 S. Sixth St. in Lafayette.
For more information about Greater Lafayette Playwrights, send email to steve_martin_73@hotmail.com with the subject heading “GL Playwrights.”
Tim Brouk is a longtime arts and entertainment reporter. He writes here (almost) weekly, tracking things to do for Based in Lafayette.
THIS AND THAT/OTHER READS …
$1.9M CONTRACT SET FOR CREASY LANE PAVING: Work is expected to start soon on a Creasy Lane repaving project, covering a busy stretch between Sagamore Parkway and Greenbush Street. Lafayette’s board of works on Tuesday approved a $1.9 million contract with Noblesville-based Midwest Paving to do the work. Jeromy Grenard, Lafayette’s city engineer, said the project is expected to last through August. The work will include milling existing pavement and repaving the length of Creasy Lane, along with some curb work in some points. The project will not require closures, but it will mean flagging operations as sections of the road are being worked on.
PURDUE STUDENTS LOOK FOR FLEXIBILITY ON ELECTION DAY: Purdue student leaders are asking for the university to cut some slack on Election Day by not scheduling quizzes or tests so students have a better shot to get to their home counties to vote. A measure presented to the faculty-led University Senate, backed by Purdue Student Government and Purdue Graduate Student Government, asked for similar flexibility offered by campuses in Kentucky, Montana, South Carolina, Virginia and Delaware where classes are canceled on Election Day.
Nicholas Neuman, student body vice president, told the University Senate that recent efforts between Purdue and the county election board to put a polling place on campus was helpful, but wasn’t the point of the proposal. Neuman said that with more than 80% of the students registered to vote in counties outside Tippecanoe County, they need time to get home if they want to vote in person. He said efforts to work with the Dean of Students Office on an absence policy for Election didn’t find a solution, so the proposal was what he called a middle ground, asking for awareness among faculty so they don’t schedule tests those days.
Neuman said he’d run into contrary policies in courses when he asked professors for permission to miss a class so he could sign up to be a poll worker in a recent election.
“I was told by one department no, that it was not allowed to skip classes, yet the other department was fully in favor,” Neuman said.
The University Senate is expected to consider the policy recommendation at its March 23 session.
A BILL AND CONCERNS ABOUT ICE ON CAMPUS: Purdue officials responded Monday to questions from the University Senate about Senate Bill 76, a measure that would mandate local cooperation with federal immigration crackdowns, including in schools and on college campuses. Given turmoil surrounding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minneapolis and other cities, the question was: What plans is Purdue making to protect students, staff and faculty who may be afraid to come to campus?
A written answer supplied by Purdue administrators said: “We have all seen news accounts of ICE enforcement activity in large metropolitan areas, and it is understandable that members of our campus community have concerns about their safety and security. While we have no reason to believe that ICE is planning enforcement activity on our campus, the Office of International Students and Scholars will be sharing specific guidance for those who encounter an ICE enforcement activity on or off campus. This guidance supplements the university’s standard guidance for dealing with any law enforcement questions on campus which requires faculty and staff to call the office of legal counsel (494-9059) or PUPD (494-8221).”
Provost Patrick Wolfe told the University Senate Monday that his office was “working on getting some broader guidance that’s already gone to our graduate students and international scholars … distributed a little bit more broadly.”
Thanks, again, for support for this edition from Purdue’s Presidential Lecture Series, presenting bestselling science writer and documentarian Timothy Ferris Feb. 26. Reserve your free ticket at https://am.ticketmaster.com/purdue/buy/pls0226.
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Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.
I applaud students that make plan to vote on Election Day and professors that give them time to do so. However, let’s not forget that many students can’t easily drive home to vote, and Purdue should be encouraging students to register to vote in Tippecanoe County to assist with requesting absentee ballots for their home elections.
Looks like a lot fun, Greater Lafayette Playwrights!