Four Submission Opportunities for Playwrights

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The New American Theatre

Opportunity: Festival of New American One Act Plays
Location:  Culver City, California, USA
Current Deadline:  Extended Deadline: August 31, 2017 (11:59 pm)
Submission Fee: $10.00 per entry
Type of Contest: Short Plays no longer than 15 minutes
Restrictions:  Must not have been produced in Los Angelas, California and not under option or scheduled for a professional production or publication at the time of submission.
Award:  A selection of 8-12 semi-finalists will be performed in a Fall Marathon of One Act Plays. 5 to 8 of the semi-finalists will be selected to be presented in the Spring 2018 Festival. Finalists will be invited to be members of the New American Theatre Playwrights Circle.

For complete submission details check out The New American Theatre Web Site. 

Toowoomba Repertory Theatre Society

Opportunity: Carnival of Flowers Toowomba Repertory Theatre Playing Writing Competition
Location: Toowomba, Queensland, Australia
Current Deadline: Entries must be received by September 30th, 2017
Submission Fee: $40.00 Australian
Type of Contest: One Acts running between 50 and 75 minutes
Restrictions: Australian Playwrights

  • Must be unpublished and never performed or workshopped.
  • Preference will be given to plays with a small cast size that can be simply staged on a small proscenium stage.

Award: Best Play $4,000 Australian. Second Best Play $2,000 Australian. Two winning plays will undergo a six month review process led by a professional dramaturge in order to provide input to the playwrights and assist in the further development of the scripts. Winning plays will be performed during the 2018 Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers for a ten night run. 

For complete submission details check out the Toowoomba Repertory Theatre Society Web Page. 

Därkhorse Drämatists

Opportunity: Write to the Heart – Love Themed Play Festival
Location:  Binghamton, New York, USA
Current Deadline:  December 6, 2017
Submission Fee: None listed
Type of Contest: One Acts 25 page maximum/10 page minimum. No minimum page count for 1 person shorts or monologues. 
Restrictions:  No exceedingly violent or pornographic material. Adult language allowed within reason. Maximum 3-4 characters in a limited setting with minimal props. Two submission per playwright. Plays may have had previous productions but must be unpublished. 
Award:  Plays will be mediated in a forum comprised of local playwrights, directors and actors to determine which will be produced.

For complete submission details check out the Därkhorse Drämatists Write to the Heart Web Site.

PlayFest Santa Barbara

Opportunity: Playwriting Competition
Location:  Santa Barbara, California, USA
Current Deadline:  October 1, 2017
Submission Fee: $25.00 per entry
Type of Contest: Full-length plays, musicals, translation and adaptations, and works for young audiences. 
Restrictions:  Must not have received a professional production. Plays must be written in English. Playwrights, composers and librettists may submit only one manuscript per festival year.
Award:  Selected plays participate in the New Play Festival which is a celebration of new plays, including readings of plays by playwrights from Santa Barbara and beyond. 

For complete submission and festival details check out the PlayFest Santa Barbara web site.

QUOTA gets London Production

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“All societies are based on codes of behaviour and when someone deviates from that code there has to be a way to handle the situation otherwise chaos would reign supreme, and we don’t want that now do we. We want everything nice and tidy. All the socks in the sock drawer and all the undies in the undie drawer.”

That’s a line from my play QUOTA. It’s what Dave Dixon gets told by Kathie, the Civic Census taker, after he gets flagged for corrective action.

I wrote QUOTA while I was doing a little research for another play about the internment camps that the Canadian government ran during World War One and World War Two.* It’s always bothered me that we were fighting dictatorships that put people in camps while we were doing the same thing. Of course our camps weren’t concentration camps but once you have a different set of laws and rules applied to one group in your society – how do you keep it from going to the extreme? [Read more…]

WordWave 2016 or Death at Lake Tahoe

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WordWave_CGSo, why do we tell stories? Is it to entertain? To pass on wisdom? To contemplate life? I think it’s all those things. Stories help us to understand our place in the Universe. Stories give us context. They help us navigate life. If you don’t think story is important try and imagine a world without story. It doesn’t exist.

And so, I’m excited to announce that one of my stories, Death and the Psychiatrist, is going to be part of the 2016 WordWave Festival.

[Read more…]

Five Playwriting Opportunities & Pumpkins

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You know I don’t get why playwriting festivals ask for blind submissions when they don’t accept braille as a submission format.

Bad joke? Yes. Of course that doesn’t mean I don’t have a few thoughts about festivals and their submission requirements.

But before I get to those here is the list of the playwriting festivals and opportunities I have included in this week’s blog:

  1. Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum: Botanicum Seedlings – A Development Series for Playwrights
  2. Tree City Playhouse: 10-Minute Play Competition
  3. Sanguine Theatre Company: Project Playwright Festival
  4. id Theater: Seven Devils Playwrights Conference
  5. Ruby Slippers Theatre, the Vancouver Fringe Festival and Equity in Theatre present: Advance Theatre: New Works by Diverse Women

Further details and links to each festival can be found by scrolling down. In the meantime here are some of my thoughts about entry fees and having to submit never produced work.

pumpkin

The 2016 Port Elgin Pumpkin Fest Giant Vegetable Weigh-Off Competition!

[Read more…]

Moments, Dialogue and the North Park Playwrights Festival

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14th Annual North Park Playwrights Festival

My short comedy, Never Give Up, is one of 24 plays being presented at this year’s 14th Annual North Park Playwrights Festival in San Diego, California. The production is being directed by Dave Fremland and stars Gunnar Ramstrum as Nigel Davenport and Sam Goldstein as Todd Sparks. [Read more…]