Playwright Zoe Stanton-Savitz will premiere their tender queer drama, Hazel and Bea in the In-Between, at the 8th Annual Durango PlayFest, June 23-28. In less than a decade, PlayFest has matured into a coveted incubator for well-known and emerging playwrights, actors, and directors to develop new works and present them to live audiences for feedback.
In the play, two elderly women — Hazel, sharp-tongued and fiercely independent, and Bea, warm but forgetful — meet as roommates in a nursing home. They clash over space, noise, and personality. As they reminisce about the lives that they’ve lost, Hazel comes to believe Bea is the Beatrice she loved as a teenager.
FELICIA QUOTE
“Zoe is an emerging playwright who writes with extraordinary insight and authenticity,” said Felicia Lansbury Meyer, PlayFest Artistic Director. “She beautifully captures the voices, humor, and resilience of women in their 80s while illuminating the harsh realities queer individuals faced in earlier decades. The play is heartfelt, funny, and will resonate across generations.”
Stanton-Savitz is a New York-based playwright and sound designer whose prolific works have been staged at Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence College, and renowned festivals. A third-year MFA student at Columbia, Stanton-Savitz has already garnered critical acclaim as a semi-finalist for several competitions, including the TNT Pops! Playwrighting Competition, and the David Lindsay-Abaire Award for Excellence in Playwriting.
The 2026 PlayFest is excited to welcome the following cast:
• Patty McCormack – Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated actor with eight decades of experience in stage, television and film. She is known for her performances in The Bad Seed, Frost/Nixon and The Master.
• Kathleen Noone – Emmy Award-winning actress who starred as Ellen on All My Children. Theatrically, she worked off-Broadway at The Roundabout Theatre, and at many regional theatres. Kathleen has also starred in many feature films including Citizen Ruth and Don’t Mess With The Zohan. On television, she was a series regular on Knots Landing, and guest-starred on numerous series such as Party of Five, According to Jim, and Frasier.
• Tara Demmy – Durango, CO-based clown, theatre artist, and historian originally from Philadelphia. She is a company member with Merely Players in Durango. Her original show, Clown Sex Ed, just completed a Colorado tour.
Directing the play will be Nikki DiLoreto. As a director and associate director, DiLoreto has worked on Broadway, Off-Broadway, the West End, and on regional theater productions across North America, including the global hit SIX: The Musical, Soft Power, The Magnificent Seven, and the recent Broadway revival of Kiss Me, Kate. She has collaborated with Roundabout Theatre Company, The Public Theatre, Rattlestick Theatre, WP Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, IAMA Theatre, Geffen Playhouse, and Center Theatre Group among others.
The festival will also feature readings of The German by two-time Tony nominee, Lyle Kessler, A Deal Picked Just for You by award-winning Iranian-American writer and director John Farmanesh-Bocca, and the dark thriller The Henry Clyde Canning Murder House by Christian Missonak.
Co-founded by actors Wendie Malick and Dan Lauria, PlayFest featured both esteemed and emerging playwrights alike, including Lee Blessing, Kathleen Cahill, Richard Dresser, James Anthony Tyler, Lia Romeo, and David Myers. The event also attracts acting talents, with notables such as Dylan Baker, Richard Kind, Jane Kaczmarek, Jodi Long, Tom Wright, Ray Abruzzo, Jon Tenney and Mike Farrell. Ten plays have achieved full production following development at PlayFest.
Visit durangoplayfest.org for tickets and the full festival schedule.
