MISSION STATEMENT: Powerstories is a nonprofit professional theatre whose mission is to stage true stories of women and girls to open minds and hearts
and inspire action worldwide.
6th Annual Voices of Women Theatre FestivalFull-Length Play SelectionsShort Plays and StoriesSeek and Speak Your Powerstory Mini WorkshopPlaywriting WorkshopRestaurant Partnership
Showcasing the Works of Women Playwrights on March 5-8, 2026
Powerstories’ Voices of Women Festival encourages submissions from women-identifying playwrights, playwrights of color, and other underrepresented groups. We are committed to promoting intersectional equity and enabling various submissions related to the theater of historically marginalized populations, including Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities.
The 2026 Voices of Women Theatre Festival will present four unforgettable nights of storytelling on stage. Audiences will experience three evenings of full‑length staged readings in two categories, General and Women Playwrights Over 40, spotlighting powerful new works by women playwrights. A dedicated night of bold and surprising ten‑minute plays will round out the performance lineup.
The festival will also feature performances by Seek and Speak Your Powerstory 2025 participants, a mini Seek and Speak Your Powerstory, and workshops designed to inspire both new and veteran playwrights as they develop their craft and share their voices.
Full-Length Selections
THURSDAY, MARCH 5 – 7 PM – Sam Hernandez: “How To Rob the Art Institute of Chicago” (General Category), Texas BUY $20 TICKETS
FRIDAY, MARCH 6 – 7 PM – Kira Rockwell: “The Tragic Ecstasy of Girlhood” (General Category), Georgia BUY $20 TICKETS
SUNDAY, MARCH 8 – 3 PM – Shelli Pentimall Bookler: “All My Mothers” (Women Playwrights Over 40 Category), Pennsylvania BUY $20 TICKETS
Short Play Selections
SATURDAY, MARCH 7 – 7 PM – Local selections – BUY $20 TICKETS
- “Love, Lost (Rings), and What We Wore” By Jessica Burchfield
- “Zeus Gets Cancelled” By Alaina Rahaim
- “Black Barbie” By Ashley Burgess Laster
- “What about Ruth?” By Charlene Dorsey
- Seek and Speak Your Powerstory presentations
March 5-8, 2026
HCC Black Box Studio, 1411 E. 11th Ave., Tampa 33605
Full-Length Staged Reading Play Selections
Thursday, March 5
7 PM
Sam Hernandez
TEXAS
How to Rob the Art Institute of Chicago
GENERAL CATEGORY
On a cold Chicago night, four friends debate a serious question: Is stealing Indigenous art of Latin America a radical act of decolonization or a stupid way to get arrested? In How to Rob the Art Institute of Chicago, a comedy about friendship, identity, and colonialism, four college seniors plan the most important heist of their lives.
Sam Hernandez is a costume designer, artist, and playwright who recently graduated from Northwestern University with a major in Theatre and a minor in Art, Theory, and Practice. She was a finalist for the Agnes Nixon Playwriting Award at Northwestern University in 2024 and won the award in 2025.
Friday,
March 6
7 PM
Kira
Rockwell
GEORGIA
The Tragic Ecstasy of Girlhood
GENERAL CATEGORY
After the sudden death of a housemate, four teenage girls living in a group home try to combat their grief. A poetic, heartfelt drama that explores the chrysalis of female adolescence and demands our attention be on the youth of America who are living in the shadows of a broken system.
Kira Rockwell (she/her) is a playwright and Atlanta-based educator, originally from the heart of Texas. Rockwell is a Fellow with the Mass Cultural Council, a recipient of the Judith Royer Excellence in Playwriting Award, Gene Gabriel Moore Playwriting Award, Second Place recipient of the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, Three-time Finalist for the O’Neill, Runner-Up for the Princess Grace, and more.
Her plays include Oh To Be Pure Again (world premiere: Actor’s Express); Wicked Bitter Beast(s) (development: Alabama Shakespeare Festival); Holy Chicken Sandwich (workshop premiere: Boston New Works Festival); The Tragic Ecstacy of Girlhood (workshop premiere: Boston Playwrights’ Theatre); Nomad Americana (world premiere: Fresh Ink Theatre); With My Eyes Shut (Now available here through Original Works Publishing).
Rockwell’s work has also been developed with The Kennedy Center, National New Play Network, Great Plains Theatre Commons, and Last Frontier Theatre Conference, among others. Commissions with Ensemble Studio Theatre, Actor’s Express, and Moonbox Productions. She holds a BFA in Theatre Performance from Baylor University and an MFA in Playwriting from Boston University.
Before graduate school, Rockwell worked at the intersection of mental health, youth advocacy, and arts education. Through a trauma-informed, healing-centered lens, she aims to nurture communal spaces that disrupt passivity and empower agency.
Sunday, March 8
3 PM
Shelli Pentimall Bookler
PENNSYLVANIA
All My Mothers
WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS OVER 40 CATEGORY
Sophie works at a non-commercial aquarium dedicated to the rehabilitation of injured and abandoned sea mammals. However, beneath this outward focus lies a profound personal journey. As Sophie searches for her birth father for a sense of connection, she navigates complex relationships with her birth mother, an emotionally distant former competitive swimmer; her adoptive mother, who faces the potential loss of her cherished neighborhood restaurant; and her restless mother-in-law. Ultimately, Sophie’s quest to heal her sense of abandonment leads her to discover renewed strength within the community surrounding her.
Shelli Pentimall Bookler holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Temple University and an M.A. in Theatre Arts from Eastern Michigan University. Productions of her full-length plays include the musical Snyder v Phelps, Addicted, All the Dead Biddles, and Bird in the Window. Short plays featured in play festivals include Committed (Montgomery Theatre, the Brick Playhouse), Decision (Village Players of Hatboro), Jugs (Colonial Playhouse), Global (Heartlande Theatre Company), and Vanity, featured in Seeds of Spring, A Night of Feminist Performance Art. She was the New American Voices Playwriting Series finalist, Midwest Dramatist Center’s Playwriting Conference finalist, American Association of Community Theatre semi-finalist, Dayton Playhouse PlayFest finalist, and winner of audience favorite, and completed a residency with Out of the Box Theatrics in New York City. She is a member of The Dramatist Guild, Philadelphia Dramatist Center, and the Witherspoon Circle, as well as an actor, director, dramaturg, and choreographer in Philadelphia.
Short Plays and Stories
Staged Readings – March 7 – 7 PM
Jessica Burchfield
CLEARWATER
Love, Lost (Rings), and What We Wore
What happens when the wedding rings are lost, someone gets stuck in a closet, and the bride has no idea what’s going on? Chaos! This short play dives into the farcical aspects of wedding day excitement and highlights the chaotic nature of family, love, and aging gracefully.
Jessica Burchfield is the Director of the Performing Arts program at St. Petersburg Catholic High School and a local director at area community and professional theatres. Her works highlight the heartwarming moments that make up her crazy life story through farce, comedy, and drama. She wouldn’t be who she is without her lifetime boyfriend, hubby Rob, and is grateful to you, the audience, for supporting local playwrights. Always remember to love one another!
Alaina Rahaim
TAMPA
Zeus Gets Cancelled
In this ten-minute, two-person comedy, Zeus hosts “ZEUS: On the Loose,” a late-night talk show for the gods, demigods, and mortals. Defying the wishes of his studio executives, Zeus goes off script to clear the air about some recent, and not-so-recent, allegations. Through charades, puns, Dr. Seuss rhyme, and spoken word poetry, Zeus shares his apologia, rather than his apology.
Alaina Rahaim is a native Floridian playwright and actor who grew up in the West Palm Beach area, yet remains a kid at heart living in Tampa. A number (and that number is precisely three) of her plays have been produced locally through staged readings at The Beach Theatre and the Carrollwood Cultural Center, as well as the Tampa Bay Theatre Festival. Making people laugh has been a lifelong love for Alaina. She began acting at the age of five and wrote her first play at twelve. She would rather not keep doing the math on how long ago that was. Alaina majored in Theatre at Dreyfoos School of the Arts, earned degrees in Communication and Literature from the University of Central Florida, and obtained her Master of Science and Educational Specialist degrees from Florida State University. Because while laughter may be the best medicine, comedy tragically does not cover dental. Alaina is excited to share her love of comedy with others!
Ashley Burgess Laster
TAMPA
Black Barbie
During a Monday morning staff meeting in a sleek Tampa office, Janelle, the only Black woman on her team, learns that everyone but her was invited to the CEO’s weekend boat party. As small talk turns sharp, she faces microaggressions masked as humor and inclusion. What begins as an ordinary meeting spirals into a moment of truth when Janelle confronts the hypocrisy of corporate culture and claims her identity with the words, “I am not a Black Barbie.” Black Barbie is a ten-minute drama about power, perception, and the courage to stop performing and start being seen.
Ashley Burgess Laster is a Tampa-based playwright, community leader, and Medicare sales professional whose work explores identity, inclusion, and resilience. Drawing from her real-world experiences as a Black woman in corporate America and her passion for storytelling, Ashley writes with humor and heart about belonging, courage, and the power of speaking truth. Black Barbie is her first stage play.
Charlene Dorsey
TAMPA
What about Ruth?
What About Ruth? is a 10-minute monologue play told fully from the biblical character Ruth’s point of view — reclaiming the story that history, scripture, and tradition have always told about her, but never from her. Through poetic language, soulful vocal riffs, and internal testimony, Ruth questions loyalty, obligation, womanhood, and self-worth. This play challenges the romanticized “Boaz narrative” and instead centers the truth inside the woman who was expected to serve everyone’s lineage but never got to speak her own. This time — Ruth speaks.
Charlene Dorsey is a multifaceted creator, educator, and entrepreneur whose work bridges faith, identity, memory, and womanhood. As founder of One Woman, Many Passions™, Charlene explores narrative through multiple creative branches — from travel writing to spiritual education to brand storytelling — with a consistent focus on integrity, transformation, and the reclamation of voice. A native of Tampa, Florida, she has spent more than two decades empowering women and young adults through teaching, arts mentorship, and narrative expression.
Her work centers the inner lives of women who have been historically spoken for — specifically giving language to the silence, survival, humor, and spiritual knowing that often sits underneath tradition. What About Ruth? is Charlene’s first staged theatrical offering under her Rooted Media branch — disrupting biblical assumptions by asking the most human question of all: “What was HER truth?”
Seek and Speak Your Powerstory
Seek and Speak Your Powerstory is a guided storytelling experience where women explore pivotal moments in their lives, uncover the meaning behind them, and learn to shape those experiences into clear, confident, spoken narratives. Throughout the process, participants reflect, write, and rehearse in a supportive environment that helps them find the heart of the story they’ve carried. At the 2026 Voices of Women Theatre Festival, these women step onto the stage to share the Powerstories they’ve crafted, offering an evening filled with honesty, vulnerability, and connection. Each story is true, each voice is distinct, and together they create a powerful reminder of what happens when women claim their stories out loud.
Seek and Speak Your Powerstory
Mini Workshop
Details coming soon! Please check back.
Playwriting Workshop
Powerstories Theatre is proud to welcome Jenny Kokai—award-winning playwright, director, and arts advocate—as our Playwright-in-Residence and playwriting instructor. Jenny brings a dynamic blend of creative brilliance and community-centered leadership to our stage and classrooms.
Currently serving as Director of the School of Theatre and Dance at the University of South Florida, Jenny’s plays have been produced across the globe—from Riverside: The National Theatre of Parramatta in Australia to Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Plan-B Theatre, Montana Rep, Moxie Theatre, and Birmingham Children’s Theatre, among many others. Her work spans genres, generations, and geographies, always rooted in bold storytelling and emotional truth.
Jenny’s accolades include selection for the Lark Play Development Center’s Playwrights Week, winner of the 2023 Hippodrome New Play Festival, and semi-finalist honors from the O’Neill National Playwrights and Music Theatre Conferences, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, B-Street Theatre, and Seven Devils. She also served five years in national leadership for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival’s Playwriting Program, championing emerging voices and inclusive feedback practices.
From preschoolers to seasoned professionals, Jenny has taught and mentored playwrights aged 3 to 70+, always centering the artist’s voice and vision. Two of her plays, published by Vanderbilt University Press, will debut this September—further cementing her legacy as a fierce and fearless storyteller.
Whether guiding new writers or crafting her own theatrical worlds, Jenny Kokai inspires with every word. We’re thrilled to have her creative spirit shaping our next generation of playwrights.
Plays in Progress – 10 Minute Plays
Sunday, March 8 | 11–2 PM | $49
Taught by Jenny Kokai, playwright-in-residence
If you have a solid draft– or even MOST of a draft– of a short play in hand and you’re looking for exercises and approaches to kick it up to that next level, this is your workshop. We’ll undertake some of my favorite revision activities, discuss artist-centered feedback models, and read participants’ work with the goal of providing generative and supportive feedback. The goal is to leave with a solid idea of the strengths of your piece and the places you see room for growth.
Max participants: 15
Perfect for: Writers with a draft in hand, ready to refine and elevate their storytelling.
Restaurant Partnerships
Details coming soon! Please check back.
