A New-Play Fest Stands Alone

AMERICAN THEATRE: “I get the impression that you’re excited,” Peggy McKowen told the crowd at the top of her curtain speech at the July 11 opening night of this year’s annual Contemporary American Theater Festival. In one sense, she was reporting a simple fact: There was indeed a palpable pre-show buzz in the 376-seat Frank Center Theater on the campus of Shepherd University, where CATF has been staging new plays each summer since 1991.