PlayFest wants theatergoers to party

They’ll be partying at PlayFest this year. Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s annual celebration of new plays has expanded to rev up the fun factor.

“We’re really trying to find a way to make it as social as possible,” said Cynthia White, the theater’s director of new play development. “Let’s get the community conversation going.”

PlayFest will now be spread over two weekends, today through Sunday and Nov. 3-5. In between shows each Saturday, from 6:30-8, theatergoers can join a PlayFest Party for a buffet dinner from Bubbalou’s Bodacious BBQ (Oct. 28) or Spoleto — My Italian Kitchen (Nov. 4).

Meeting creative types — whether over drinks or dinner — is part of the PlayFest experience.

“You get the opportunity to get into conversations with the actors, directors and playwrights who are creating theater,” White said.

PlayFest will feature seven new works, presented in reading style. Actors can use scripts, and there is no scenery. But imagination helps the new stories come to life. Readings, and the audience feedback that comes with them, are key to bringing full-scale productions to the stage.

“It is a crucial step for a writer to hear their work read aloud by capable actors and guided by the hand of a director,” said Kristin Clippard, producer in residence at the Shakes. “PlayFest offers them that opportunity.”

The fact the works are new adds a level of excitement, White said.

“We’ve all seen shows that feel like they were ‘phoned in,’” she said. “But in a reading, the energy is really different — you never know what’s going to happen.” Since its inception in 2003, PlayFest has helped develop more than 100 new works. Fan favorites are often given full stagings, some right here in Orlando such as “Native Gardens,” coming to the Shakes in January, and “The Day Before Yesterday,” which will be presented at Theatre UCF in February.

Here are the seven plays featured this year.

Mark St. Germain (“Dancing Lessons,” “The Best of Enemies”) adapts John Updike’s bestseller about the villains of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” 8 p.m. today, 2:30 p.m. Nov. 5.

Rachel Lynett humorously examines how liberal-arts colleges handle (or don’t) today’s political correctness. 4:30 p.m. Saturday.

Lauren Gunderson (“I And You”) looks at scientific soulmates Ada Byorn Lovelace, daughter of poet Lord Byron, and Charles Babbage, a pioneer in computing. 8 p.m. Saturday.

Meridith Friedman revisits the humorous family of “The Luckiest People,” which the Shakes will stage in March. 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

A fertility-clinic mix-up joins two couples in an unlikely friendship in Eric Pfeffinger’s play. 8 p.m. Nov. 3.

Deneen Reynolds-Knott’s relationshipbased play considers the racial divide. 4:30 p.m. Nov. 4.

Miranda Rose-Hall ponders reconciliation and forgiveness in a haunting tale of a marriage struggling under the spectre of death. 8 p.m. Nov. 4.