The Firehouse Center for the Arts may have to consider renaming its New Works Festival after James McLindon.

For the third straight year, the Northampton playwright has captured the contest's top honors —the Pestolozzi Award for Best Full-Length Play — for his new work, "Dead and Buried."

Newbury's Stephen Faria earned the Peter Honegger Award for Best Short Play for his "Egg Whites and Miracles."

The pieces will be performed as part of the Firehouse's annual playwriting festival scheduled for January 22 and 23 and 29 and 30.

The other works accepted into the festival are the full-length play "pudding" by Michael Tooher of Portland, Maine; and the short works "Soldier Boy" by Leslie Powell of Newburyport; "If You Love" by Marc Clopton of Salisbury; "A Crooked Chapatti" by Priya Tahiliani of Maine; "Amenities" and "Knowing," both by Gregory Hischak of South Yarmouth; "Jock Itch" by George Sauer of Dedham; "Last Dance" by Kerry Zagarella of Ipswich; "No Strings Attached" by Karia Sorenson of Lowell; "Party" by Michael Z. Keamy of Boston; "Sleeping With the Cat 1963" by Danny Sklar of Hamilton; "Free Will and Kat" by Faria's wife, Deirdre Girard; and "Touching Elephants" by Faria.

Since 2002, the New Works Festival has fostered the development of New England writers, directors and actors. The event aims to provide insight on the playwriting process from conception to presentation and share new works with the community.

This year's panel of judges, who reviewed the submissions in blind readings, consisted of Joe Antoun, co-founder and artistic director of Centastage in Boston; David Frank, who teaches English and runs the theater program at Roxbury Latin School in Boston; Alan Huisman, an actor and developmental editor for Heinemann (a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt); Diana Kerry, who has been a teacher, administrator and drama director at schools in the U.S. and abroad; M. Lynda Robinson, who has worked in theater, film and TV as an actor, director, producer, teacher and playwright; Dawn Jenks Sarrouf, who teaches technical direction and production management at Gordon College in Wenham; and John B. Welch, one of the founders of Boston Theatre Association, American Premiere Stage and StageSource.

The 2010 New Works Festival will be showcasing the full-length plays as staged readings, and shorts as memorized 10-minute plays. For more on the festival, visit www.firehouse.org/L3-shows-theater-NewWorks.html.