LAKE PLACID — The Lake Placid Center for the Arts recently announced the winners of the Zoom Play Festival, held in late August.

“When COVID hit the performing arts world, there were so many playwrights and actors instantly put out of work,” said Tara Palen, director of education and outreach at the LPCA. “Many theaters started doing online play readings, but it can be difficult to translate a play written for the stage to an online platform. So we thought, what if we put out a call for submissions for short plays written specifically with Zoom in mind?”

More than 135 short plays were submitted from all over the world, including submissions from New Zealand, England, Mexico and Canada.

LPCA plans to present an evening showcase of the winning pieces and honorable mentions on Feb. 19. Collaborations are underway with Directors and Theatres to produce the pieces. Also, LPCA plans to produce several of the plays in-house.

The winning plays and honorable mentions are:

¯ “Joe the Rememberer” — James Still, winner

¯ “Dream On, Black Girl” — Maxine Joie du Maine, winner

¯ “Choices” — James McClindon, winner

¯ “Who’s On Zoom?” — Cynthia Faith Arsenault, winner

¯ “Pandemic Speed Dating” — Molly Wagner, honorable mention

¯ “Meetings” — Mike Adams, honorable mention

¯ “How Do I Get This Thing to Work?” — Lawrence Goodman, honorable mention

¯ “It Looks Like Snow” — Jeffrey Kirkland, honorable mention

The large number of submissions required the work of many readers.

“We reached out to theater artists, writers, professors and other arts professionals from around the country to help, as well as our own LPCA staff for assistance” said Palen.

The plays were read and scored on areas such as plot development, character voice and adherence to the submission criteria.

The judges were Karen Lewis, Kenney Green, James Lemons, Nick Attanasio, Stacy Oristano, Chad Peterson, Landrie Bock, Denise Lee, Emily Jones, Julie Stirman, Rachel Lampert, Mike McCreadie, Traci Lee, Rheatha Forster, Chad McCoy, David Howson, Lorraine Draper, Alison Simcox, Erin Walkow and Anya Villaneuve.