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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE

THEATRE ASPEN
ANNOUNCES
2025 SOLO FLIGHTS PROJECT ADVANCEMENT FUND
GRANT RECIPIENTS

“THE GOLDSMITH” BY SHARONE SAYEGH
AND
“THE VAMPIRE” BY ALEC SILBERBLATT

Aspen, CO (September 18, 2025) – Today, Theatre Aspen (Jed Bernstein, Producing Director) announced the two grant recipients from the 2025 Solo Flights Project Advancement Fund: The Goldsmith, written by and starring Sharone Sayegh, directed by Zachary Prince, with sound composition and music arrangement by Avi Amon; and The Vampire, written by and starring Alec Silberblatt and directed by Paul Edwards. The recipients of the Solo Flights Project Advancement grants will each be awarded $10,000 in support for a future production of those works.

On the success of the 2025 Solo Flights Festival, Producing Director Jed Bernstein said, “This year’s edition of the Solo Flights Festival has been an important milestone for Theatre Aspen: setting a new record for attendance and opening up new doors for audience engagement throughout the week. On behalf of Theatre Aspen, I’m so grateful for all of the talented individuals who helped these fantastic shows come to life and I want to extend our heartfelt congratulations to the talented playwrights whose works stood out. We’re excited to see where their creations go next and are honored to have played a part in their journey.”

“The Solo Flights Festival was such a gift for the development of this play, and during our week there the play took such a big leap forward,” said actress and playwright Sharone Sayegh. “I was honestly just so grateful to have had my play chosen to be a part of the festival, especially among the other incredibly talented and notable writers, actors, and directors – and then to find out that I received this additional support, was truly icing on the cake. I feel so grateful and excited for the future of the play, and I can’t wait to have our first full production.”

“To be a part of the Solo Flights Festival, to have the opportunity to work among the mountains with such talented people was an honor on its own,” said playwright Alec Silberblatt. “But to receive this grant at a time when funding for new work is scarce, it feels something akin to a blessing. This grant ensures a life for this piece beyond what can often feel like the endless loop of development. This grant ensures this play will meet a broader audience, which is all a playwright like me dreams of.”

The selection panel for this year’s grants included Thomas Schumacher, producer and Disney Theatrical’s former Chief Creative Officer, and Peter Marks, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the chief theater critic at The Washington Post for 21 years.

The 2025 Solo Flights Festival also included new works featuring plays written, directed and performed by luminaries like Emmy^® and Grammy Award^®-nominated Margaret Cho, three-time Tony Award^®-nominated Marc Kudisch, Gordon Greenberg, Dick Scanlan, and Ryan Langer.

Solo Flights is an annual weeklong developmental festival of one-person shows presented in the beginning stages of their making. Launched in 2019, the festival has brought a variety of diverse works and celebrated actors and directors to Theatre Aspen. Artists have included Marsha Mason, Judith Ivey, Phylicia Rashad, Regina Taylor, Bryce Pinkham, Kate Baldwin, Taylor Trensch, Beau Bridges, Jeff Hiller, Lorin Latarro, Kaye Winks, Sarah Stiles, Christine Quintana, Emma Ramos, Richard Greenberg, Lameece Issaq, Michael Gaston, James Naughton, James Whiteside and more.

Since its inception, several of the works presented have gone on to have full, critically acclaimed productions.

Theatre Aspen’s Solo Flights Festival is presented in part by Rachel and Richard Klausner, Nancy Wall and Chuck Wall, Margie and Bryan Weingarten, Maja and Nicholas DuBrul, Karen Brooks, Juliet Shield-Taylor and the Robins Foundation, Meredith Berman, Bunni and Paul Copaken, Mark Mason, and Katy and Adam Frisch.

2025 SOLO FLIGHTS NEW WORKS

The Goldsmith
Written by and Starring Sharone Sayegh
Directed by Zachary Prince
Sound Composer and Music Arrangement by Avi Amon

Stemming from Broadway actress Sharone Sayegh’s true family’s journey, The Goldsmith is a treasury of stories woven through the golden jewelry passed down through her family, across borders, cultures, and generations. Each piece of jewelry takes us further along her family’s journey from Iraq to Israel, and then to America, where Sharone grapples for love as a first- generation Iraqi, Israeli, American Jew. As she wrestles with identity, belonging, multiplicity of self, and acceptance, this solo play moves, surprises, and inspires the audience to investigate the stories and legacies with which we adorn ourselves throughout our lives.

Ghost Tour

Written by Gordon Greenberg
Directed by Stephen Brackett

In Ghost Tour, a sardonic out-of-work actor returns to his Florida hometown to host a haunted theatre tour—only to be haunted by his own past. As fact blurs with fiction, the tour becomes a hilarious, heart-wrenching deep dive into love, loss, queerness, and the ghosts we carry. Set against the kitschy backdrop of Orlando’s supernatural subculture, this sharply funny solo play is part stand-up, part séance, and wholly unforgettable. Because sometimes, the scariest stories are the ones we tell ourselves.

Mourning Songs
Written by and Starring Ryan Langer
Co-Directed by Gregg Wiggans & Jack Cumming III

When grief goes viral, how far do you go to turn heartbreak into a breakthrough? Aspiring musical theatre composer, Ryan Langer, is on the verge of giving up—until an unexpected tragedy triggers a creative spark he never saw coming. On an impulse, Ryan starts a social media project to cope with his grief… and it explodes. As likes turn into shares and re-posts, an unexpected career opportunity emerges, and Ryan must confront the cost of turning personal pain into public art.

The Vampire
Written by and Starring Alec Silberblatt
Directed by Paul Edwards

A lonely and lost young man, seduced by wealth, purpose, and friendship finds himself in the company of a vampire. After inviting the monster into his life, he must choose whether to embrace the violence and chaos it brings or vanquish the foe and protect those he loves most.

Mark Twain Shouldn’t Say Such Things
@ The Wheeler Opera House
Written by Dick Scanlan and Marc Kudisch
Directed by Dick Scanlan
Starring Marc Kudisch

While on a lecture tour to promote the publication of his new novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain—America’s first stand-up comic—is faced with a crisis when touring partner and friend, southern writer and unexpected progressive George Washington Cable leaves the tour without warning. Forced to use his famous wit and charisma to turn the two-hander into a solo act, Twain must confront his own views on friendship and race… and his ways of expressing those views. If you think you know the Icon, get ready to meet the Man.

Mommy: A One-Woman Cho
Written by and starring Margaret Cho
Directed by Seonjae Kim
Additional Material by Leah Nanako Winkler

In this genre-defying solo show, trailblazing artist Margaret Cho takes on the persona she embodied in her comedy so many times: her own mother. As “Mommy” takes the audience through a hilarious romp of the Korean-American immigrant experience, inconvenient secrets of family and survival emerge. Delivered with Cho’s signature wit, Mommy: A One Woman Cho is a fearless invitation to see the truth in our own stories.

ABOUT THEATRE ASPEN

As Theatre Aspen enters its 42^nd season in 2025 it continues to rekindle a sense of discovery in audiences who live in and visit the Roaring Fork Valley by producing big theatre in a small space with intimate storytelling. Each season, Theatre Aspen promises to bring world-class theatre dramatically closer, with innovative and imaginative productions of both plays and musicals. These productions are complemented by an assortment of community events, including cabarets, educational programs and performances, collaborations with other Aspen arts organizations, and new works presentations. Theatre Aspen also boasts an impressive Apprentice Program, one of the largest in the country, devoted to training the next generation of theatrical artists and administrators. For more information on Theatre Aspen, visit TheatreAspen.org or call (970) 925-9313.

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