Bekah Brunstetter was feeling lackluster about her play last week. She had already completed a first draft, but there were still kinks to work out.

“I told her to go have a lobster roll with it or something,” said Brooke Hardman Ditchfield, the co-founder and producer of New Writers, New Plays, a part of the Vineyard Arts Project. “She sent me a picture of herself with her open notebook at the Edgartown lighthouse that said, ‘We’re in love again.’”

Ms. Brunstetter is currently a playwright in residence at the Vineyard Arts Project, along with writers Lauren Whitehead and Pig Pen Theatre Co. For the past few weeks they have all been writing and rewriting their work, using the landscape of the Island to fuel their creativity. Recently the actors and directors arrived and rehearsals began.

Now in its fifth summer, the Vineyard Arts Project is gearing up for full season of artist residencies. New Writers, New Plays features the work of upcoming artists in the American theatre scene. On Thursday, July 12, and continuing throughout the weekend, the work created during the residency will be performed for the public.

“Every year, we are more on the American theatre radar,” said Ashley Melone, founder and artistic director of the Vineyard Arts Project. “The longer you’re in the business, the more actors you start to know.”

This year the group plans to continue working towards ensuring the financial sustainability of the organization.

“We are trying to establish Vineyard Arts Project as a part of the community that can stand on its own,” Ms. Melone said. In the early years, it was funded in part by the Melone family, but for the past two years funding has come from external sources. “We want to institutionalize this so that it can last beyond my family, beyond me,” Ms. Melone said. “It’s a challenging process.”

All the performances are “pay what you can,” in an effort to accommodate all budgets. The producers are also trying to expand the program into the shoulder season, “to help the community here on the Island get more involved,” Mrs. Hardman Ditchfield said.

The two large buildings that make up the Vineyard Arts Project were built in 2004 to house a selective summer ballet program run by the Melone family. When the program was discontinued in 2008, Ms. Melone, then 23 years old, founded the Vineyard Arts Project.

Pigpen Theatre Company enjoys its third year of residency. — Ivy Ashe

“I thought, I have to make this open to more artists,” she recalled Tuesday afternoon, as a handful of newly arrived artists milled around the kitchen preparing for their first rehearsals. “It’s really about the magic and creativity that comes from being on an island, using these studios and living in the house.”

Most of the artists live and work in New York city, in what Ms. Melone refers to as “less than stellar working conditions.”

At the 215 Upper Main street location, however, artists are treated to queen-size beds, spacious community areas and large studios to call their own.

“It gets rid of the distractions of daily life,” Ms. Melone said. “It’s being able to focus on the work, then get ice cream and walk on the beach. It’s about the nature of the Island, and the paring away of the excess.”

The organization pays each artist a stipend, and covers the cost of transportation to the Island.

“Both of us are artists, and we know how we like to be treated,” Mrs. Hardman Ditchfield said.

The building features four studio spaces, complete with sprung wood floors and wall length mirrors, ballet barres and a piano. Outside on the porch, actors gather to talk over coffee and tea.

“Having the space to play is so psychologically freeing,” said Dan Weschler, a musician, actor and writer with Pig Pen Theatre Co., a group of performers who graduated from the Carnegie Mellon acting program. “[In New York city,] we travel from one cramped apartment to another. Here we roll out of bed, come downstairs and we’re in our studio.”

The Island affords inspiration,too and an immediate respite from the grueling work of creating art. “We love to let the beautiful Island pastoral sites influence our art,” Mr. Weschler said.

“Being on the Island goes along with the show we’re doing now, which is a sea adventure,” added Curtis Gillen, another Pig Pen artist. “Having the sites, sounds and smells [of the ocean] is beneficial to the play. The external stimuli are just perfect for the show.”

The Pig Pen ensemble has been reading through their script of The Old Man and the Old Moon at Edgartown Lighthouse beach. They gather in bare feet or socks to practice Crow’s Song, which they wrote on the Vineyard two summers ago. Mr. Wechsler plays the accordion, two of his colleagues strum on the banjo and a third plays a resonator guitar. This is Pig Pen’s third year in residency at the Vineyard Arts Project.

Lauren Whitehead is enjoying her first visit to the Vineyard, and her play Stunning, Still is also her first. Her writing process has been emotional, she said.

“I’ve spent a couple hours crying in a couple of places in town,” she said. But she says having more experienced writers around has made her feel more comfortable. “They say, ‘it’s all a part of the process,’” she said. “I feel really lucky to be here.”

Ms. Whitehead said she was “totally shocked” when Ms. Melone invited her to come to the Island to work on her play.

“I felt chosen,” she said. She had been hearing about Martha’s Vineyard from her friends at Columbia University, where she is studying for an MFA in dramaturgy. “Everybody was dreaming about it. It was like you have to click your heels together and pray really hard to get there.”

Fellow playwright Ms. Brunstetter has attended many summer theatre programs in the past, but the Vineyard Arts Project is her favorite.

“The lack of structure allows me to work on my play and then ride my bike to the beach,” she said, while waiting for her first rehearsal to begin. Soon her actors sat down at folding card tables and opened their laptops to read the script.

“There’s a lot of new stuff that might be gone tomorrow,” Ms. Brunstetter said.

Director Geordie Broadwater then addressed the actors. “Our purpose is to help Bekah create the best version of her play,” he said.

And with that, the actors began reading through the play for the first time.

New Writers, New Plays begins Thursday, July 12, at 1 p.m. and continues on Friday and Saturday. Performances later in the summer include work by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and director James Lapine and Dance Theatre of Harlem. Tonight, July 6, from 6 to 9 p.m. is a cocktail reception to celebrate the upcoming 2012 season. The reception will be held on the lawn at Vineyard Arts Project, 215 Upper Main street in Edgartown. For a full schedule of events, visit vineyardartsproject.org.