Festival Poster Design Contest
The RICHARD P. STAHL Festival of New American Theatre
December 2026 Poster Design Contest
Calling visual artists! Bring stories to life with your art! The Richard P. Stahl Festival of New American Theatre seeks talented artists to design posters for our readings. Showcase your creativity and support new voices in theatre!
Submissions for the December 2026 Richard P. Stahl Festival of New American Theatre Poster Contest are NOW OPEN! Deadline for submissions is October 9, 2026.
Requirements and Compensation
Requirements and Compensation
First, design a piece of any media based on the show summaries below (Bandit Queen, The Human Comedy, The Sparkle Wars). Then, submit an image that’s 300 dpi 16×20″ to newworks@phoenixtheatre.com by October 9, 2026, 11:59pm. You may submit more than once for any show, or multiple shows.
Any work received after this date will not be eligible to participate. Each show’s artwork will be chosen by November 2, 2026. Those who have their work selected will receive a $300 honorarium and 2 tickets for one of that show’s readings.
Please note: As part of our ongoing mission to celebrate human connection, we discourage the use of AI art in submissions.
Design posters for these shows in development below:
BANDIT QUEEN
Musical Reading
Composer and Book Writer: Amanda D’Archangelis
Lyricist and Book Writer: Sami Horneff
Saturday, December 5 at 7:30pm & Sunday, December 6 at 2pm
Hormel Theatre
It’s 1902, and a troupe of traveling actors presents “The Arizona Female Bandit,” a play centering on Pearl Hart, the Wild West’s most notorious woman outlaw…and the older sister of playwright and star Katy Davy. But tonight, the real Pearl, freshly released from prison, bursts in on the final rehearsal, insisting the show’s ‘facts’ are fiction. The sisters step into their own roles, reliving their past shaped by abuse, crime, and addiction – and forcing them to finally mend old scars live, in real time. BANDIT QUEEN features a small cast of versatile performers and an Americana-inspired score that blends the rich storytelling of the Old West with a contemporary pop theatre sound.
The Human Comedy
Musical Reading
Book Writer and Lyricist: William Dumaresq
Composer: Galt MacDermot
Additional Lyrics: Sam Willmott
Adapted by: Jack Viertel, Sam Willmott, and Sammi Cannold
Saturday, December 12 at 7:30pm & Sunday, December 13 at 2pm
Hormel Theatre
In a small-town California city that perhaps never really was, young Homer Macauley becomes a telegraph delivery boy bringing messages of hope and tragedy to the local residents. Set during World War II, The Human Comedy was adapted musically by Galt Macdermot (Hair) from the classic novel by William Saroyan (look him up!!) It’s a warm, affectionate portrayal of small-town values at their best, the inevitable disappointment of some outcomes, and the unending whimsical nature and unpredictability of life itself.
The Sparkle Wars
Play Reading
Playwright: Brendan Bourque-Sheil
Friday, December 18 at 7:30pm & Sunday December 20 at 2pm
Hormel Theatre
When a group of Memorial High School Theatre students get their production of The Laramie Project shut down by the school board, they decide to make their own piece of documentary theatre about the fight to get it back, which takes them to the frontlines of a hijinks-filled culture war, guaranteed to transform Memorial, and all of them along with it. The Sparkle Wars is a mockumentary about how communities choose the stories of who they are.
