Welcome to Flipping the Script Productions! I’m Stephen Rourke, founder and president of FTS!

I’ve been involved in show business for over 25 years in a variety of roles: actor, theater preservationist, and attorney.
I’ve now decided to take on yet one more role: producer.
Why?
Because there is far too little original work in our current culture, and far too little work from historically underrepresented communities: women, Blacks, people of color, and voices in the LGBTQ community. Finding new works from those communities, and getting them in front of audiences, is what I want FTS to be all about. And I want YOU to be involved!

Whatever one or more of these communities you are a member of, and whatever talents and/or experience you can bring, I want you to know that you are welcome to be a part of our upcoming work. A little more background about myself. I have been a reader for the Baltimore Playwrights Festival for almost two decades now, and have appeared in a production of one of its plays. I have found it to be an amazing outlet for new voices, and for scripts that demand the widest possible audience.

A few years ago, I found a play, “Someone Close to You,” by a promising new playwright, Melissa Borgerding, who submitted her play to the Festival. I was one of its readers and was so taken by both the subject matter and quality of her writing that I decided to move from thinking about producing to actually doing it. So, I optioned her play and have been working with her on getting it produced.

I also joined an amazing organization founded by Tony-award-wining Broadway producer Ken Davenport, The TheaterMakers Studio, dedicated to training novice producers in the nuts and bolts of the producing process. Recently, I had the pleasure of spending a weekend with Ken and several of my fellow TTMS members to share success stories, as well as ideas that should lead to even more of them.