Become a Community Producer in Jasper's Play Right Series Project to Support SC Theatre Artists!

With our Degenerate Art Project ending this weekend, Jasper is excited to jump into our 2025 Play Right Series project with both feet! And there’s still time for you to join us and other community producers for an exciting and enlightening experience.

As a Play Right Series Community Producer you will be a part of an elite team of art supporters who invest a modest amount of money ($250) in the production of the staged reading of the 2024-2025 Play Right Series winning play, Busted Open by Greenville, SC native Ryan Stevens.

 

How does this work?

On select Sunday afternoons this summer (schedule is below!) you are invited to join with the cast, crew, and fellow Community Producers of Busted Open, by Ryan Stevens for an enlightening and entertaining session that pulls back the curtains of theatre development and illuminates how a stageplay goes from page to stage. Your first session (July 20th) will offer you a private viewing of the first step in a play production, the Table Reading – the first time the cast of Busted Open will read their parts together.

Subsequent sessions will focus on essential ingredients in the production of a successful staged reading, such as the stage manager’s job; props, lighting, blocking, and sound; unique insights from the director; how the actors prepare for their parts; playwright perceptions from this year and past projects; and an invitation to the dress rehearsal. In addition to your invitation to gather with the cast and crew every Sunday in July, each session will also feature exciting snacks and beverages. And many more surprises each week!

Finally, you’ll take your reserved, best-in-the-house seats to a ticketed staged reading of Ryan Stevens’ Busted Open on Sunday September 14th at Columbia Music Festival Association.

But there’s more.

Your name will be included as a Community Producer on programs, posters, press releases, and other promotional materials as well as in the perfect bound book, Busted Open by Ryan Stevens, published by Muddy Ford Press and registered with the Library of Congress, and you will take home your own copies of Busted Open as a souvenir of your experience.

 

Become a Play Right Series Community Producer Now!

What is expected of Community Producers?

We hope you can make it to every exciting Sunday afternoon meeting, but we understand if you have to miss some. Each session will last from 90 – 120 minutes.

The financial commitment for a Community Producer is a minimum of $250 per person, but other sponsorships are also available and appreciated.

Our hope is that you will be so enlightened and inspired by this experience that you will become a diplomat of live theatre, fresh playwrights, and the Jasper Project and encourage your friends and colleagues to participate in live theatre themselves!

Play Right Series Levels of Engagement

Community Producer    $250

Invitation to attend all four PRS CP sessions on Sunday afternoons, July 20, August 3, August 17, August 31 and September 14 2025; reserved seats for you and up to 2 additional guests to attend the premier staged reading of Busted Open on September 14th at Harbison Theatre; your name in the book Busted Open by Ryan Stevens, as well as in the program and all promotional materials; a copy of the book, and a Jasper Project gift bag valued at more than $100

 

Other Sponsorship Levels

 

Actor Sponsor                 $500 

This level sponsors one actor and supports the Play Right Series. Your generosity will be recorded with distinction above that of  Community Producers in the published play as well as in all other promotional materials and you will receive all the benefits of 2025’s roster of Community Producers, two copies of Busted Open by Ryan Stevens, and an invitation for you and up to 4 additional guests to attend the premier staged reading of Busted Open on September 14, 2025

Playwright Sponsor        $1000

This level sponsors the funding of the playwright and supports the Play Right Series. Your generosity will be recorded with distinction above that of Actor Sponsors in the published play as well as in all other promotional materials and you will receive all the benefits of 2025’s roster of Community Producers, six copies of Busted Open by Ryan Stevens, and an invitation for you and up to six additional guests to attend the premier staged reading of Busted Open on September 14, 2025

 

Director Sponsor           $2500

This level sponsors the director and supports the Play Right Series. Your generosity will be recorded with distinction above that of the Playwright Sponsor in the published play as well as in all other promotional materials and you will receive all the benefits of 2025’s roster of Community Producers, eight copies of Busted Open by Ryan Stevens, and an invitation for you and up to eight additional guests to attend the premier staged reading of Busted Open on September 14, 2025

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Play Right Series 2025 Community Producer Schedule

 

SUNDAY, JULY 20 – 7 pm: Introducing Ryan Stevens and Busted Open

One Columbia Co-op, 1013 Duke Avenue

Meet the 2025 Play Right Series Winning Playwright Ryan Stevens and witness the Inaugural Table Reading of Busted Open

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SUNDAY, AUGUST 3 – 3 pm: The Art of Stagecraft

One Columbia Co-op, 1013 Duke Avenue

The cast & crew of Busted Open explain the process of preparing for a role and tricks of the trade to demystify some of the magic of the theatrical arts   

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SUNDAY, AUGUST 17 – 3 pm: The Playwright's Craft

One Columbia Co-op, 1013 Duke Avenue

Learn about the processes of 4 award-winning playwrights including Ryan Stevens, Chad Henderson, Lonetta Thompson, and Colby Quick with your host Jon Tuttle, author of South Carolina Onstage, The Trustus Collection, and more

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SUNDAY, AUGUST  31 - 3 pm:  Sneak Peek Week!

One Columbia Co-op, 1013 Duke Avenue

Be a fly on the proverbial stage wall among an intimate group of guests to watch a working rehearsal of Busted Open – see how far the cast has come since the first ever Table Reading just six weeks earlier

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SUNDAY: SEPT 14: The Big Event – Staged Reading of Busted Open

Columbia Music Festival Association – 914 Pulaski Street

 

Take your reserved seat for the Premiere Stage Reading of Busted Open by Ryan Stevens at Columbia Music Festival Association and enjoy a post-show champagne toast to the cast, crew, and creator of Busted Open!

 

Jasper Presents the Staged Reading of the 2022 Play Right Series Winning Play -- Moon Swallower by Colby Quick

MOON SWALLOWER STAGED READING

SUNDAY AUGUST 28TH — 4 PM

at CMFA

TICKETS $10 ADVANCE - $12 AT THE DOOR

The Jasper Project presents the staged reading of a brand-new play, Moon Swallower by novice playwright, Colby Quick.

Quick is the winner of Jasper’s second Play Right Series competition in which he competed with other unpublished playwrights for an opportunity to have his play workshopped and developed by a team of seasoned theatre artists with the end result being a staged reading and the option of further development toward a fully realized stage production.

Moon Swallower will be presented at CMFA on Sunday August 28th at 4 pm with a talk back session and reception following the reading.

Moon Swallower is directed by Chad Henderson with a cast that includes Lonetta Thompson, Stann Gwynn, Becky Hunter, Richard Edwards, and Michael Hazin. Katie Leitner is the stage manager. Veteran playwright Jon Tuttle is the project manager for the 2022 Play Right Series.

The 2022 Jasper Play Right Series is made possible by the contributions of a team of Community Producers, all of whom will have contributed financially to the development of the project and have, reciprocally, been involved in the process from an educational perspective.

They are Bert Easter, Ed Madden, James Smith, Kirkland Smith, Bill Schmidt, Paul Leo, Eric Tucker, Cindi Boiter, Wade Sellers, and Jon Tuttle.

The purpose of the Play Right Series is to empower and enlighten Community Producers by allowing them insider views of the steps and processes of creating theatre art. In exchange for a  minimal financial contribution, Community Producers are invited to attend designated open readings and rehearsals, informal presentations by cast and crew, and opening night performances with producer credits. The result is that Community Producers learn about the extensive process of producing a play and become invested personally in the production and success of the play and its cast and crew, thereby become diplomats of theatre arts.

Community Producers’ names, and that of the Jasper Project, will also be permanently attached to the play and will appear in the published manuscript which will be registered with the Library of Congress and for sale via a number of standard outlets under the auspices of Muddy Ford Press and the imprint of the Jasper Project.

The Jasper Project produced their first Play Right Series in 2017, producing a staged reading of Randall David Cook’s Sharks and Other Lovers under the direction of Larry Hembree. 

About the playwright: Colby Quick is a thirty-one-year-old writer, singer, musician, actor, husband, and father of two. He is the lead singer and guitarist of a Stoner Doom band known as Juggergnome and in the development phase of a rap duo project called Ski & Beige. Colby played Ebenezer Scrooge in Northeastern Technical College’s stage production of A Christmas Carol in 2019 and is currently in his final semester at Francis Marion University as an English Major and Creative Writing Minor. “I have mostly written poems, songs, and short stories, as well as an unpublished novel.: Quick says. “When I was young, I would make stop-motion videos and I wrote scripts for all of them. I think this helped a lot with writing the Moon Swallower.”

About the project manager: Jon Tuttle is Professor of English and Director of University Honors at Francis Marion University, author of THE TRUSTUS COLLECTION (Muddy Ford Press, 2019), which includes six of his plays that premiered at Columbia’s Trustus Theatre, and a recipient of the South Carolina Governor’s Award in the Humanities.