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With the summer now in full swing, it's time for some SPF - meaning the Summer Play Festival. Founded by Broadway producer Arielle Tepper Madover in 2004, SPF is a four-week theater festival that celebrates beginning playwrights.

"The mission of the festival is to bring new young writers to New York City who have never been before," says Tepper Madover. "We coach them, we guide them, we are financially responsible for them, they don't have to pay to submit. We don't take any royalties if the show moves and they really get to be responsible for their own work. So it's really more of a teaching festival than anything else."

Eight new works are set to debut in the 2009 festival - seven plays and a musical. For the second year in a row, the Public Theater will serve as home.

"I think we had about 1,500 people submit plays this year which was almost double for what we have had in the past, which we were so happy to get that," says Tepper Madover. "That just shows that after one year at the Public Theater... it really broadened our audience."

Two of the productions slated for this year are Kevin Christopher Snipes's "The Chimes" and Zayd Dohrn's "Reborning."

Set in the late 1930s, "The Chimes" tells the story of four New England boarding school students bonded by Shakespeare yet torn apart by war.

"It's sort of an opportunity for a play like this. This is an epic play with a large cast and a lot of scenes. And it's a play that I believe would be difficult for a lot of theaters to tackle," says Snipes. "But SPF is sort of like this security blanket that can envelope the play, and allows other theaters to get a glimpse of what it could look like."

The three-person play "Reborning" analyzes the practice of creating reborning dolls, also known as "baby sculpting." The production is also allowing off-Broadway star Ally Sheedy to make her SPF debut.

"I really liked this script, I never worked at the Public, I like the character," says Sheedy. "And it's been about five years since I've been onstage in anything and right before this came I thought, 'You know what? I want to get back up there again.'"

Tickets to "Reborning," "The Chimes" and all other festival plays only cost $10.00. For more information on the play festival, visit www.spfnyc.com.