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ANPF for Playwrights
Submissions have closed for 2008.The Ashland New Plays Festival has a submission deadline of January 15 every year. The 2008 event will be held in October. The event itself takes place over the course of a week, making for a small-scale theatre lab experience for playwrights and their production team.
Next Opportunity: January 15, 2009
The Process
Once the deadline has passed, the scripts are duplicated and blinded, which is to say that all identifying information is stripped from the scripts before they are read and judged. The playwright’s information is kept secret so that gender and other bias is less likely to play any role in the selection process.
Beginning with February, each blinded script is read by three people. With 30 readers on call, 200 scripts would therefore generate 600 readings during our first round.
The readers rate and rank elements of the script. They also submit comments which are collected and aggregated. At the end of the round, scores are generated for each play. Those playwrights that do not move into the second round are notified and scripts are returned if a S.A.S.E. or box was included. (NOTE: Playwrights may elect to receive the readers’ notes as feedback.)
For the second round, six additional readers are given each script and they, too, rate and rank the plays. As before, scores are tallied at the end of the round and another cut is made for round three.
In the final round, all remaining readers are given each remaining script. Once the final scores are known, we hold meetings to discuss each finalist. Sometimes scores are adjusted up or down due to this process.
At the end, we reach consensus on the year’s best six, and submit these to our panel of professional theatre directors.
The directors read the final six and choose four based on their professional estimations as to producibility, available talent for casting, story, and text. (NOTE: Plays that require special effects in order to support the storyline or require an actor to speak his lines in Cherokee, Mandarin, and Danish would likely fail to win the prize based on our own inability to support the play with the resources it craves.)
The Reward
Each year the ANPF Play Selection Committee and our directors select up to four scripts from among the submissions. In 2008 we received scripts from 184 playwrights, making the odds of winning of 1:46 for any given script. In 2007 the odds were 1:43.
"Winning is its own reward," say some. At the ANPF it also comes with goodies. Our winning playwrights receive:
- $500 honorarium
- One week of lodging at an Ashland bed-and-breakfast inn
- A reception
- Professional director
- Professional cast (as available)
- At least eight hours of rehearsal
- Two public readings
- Feedback and written critique
Frequently we can also provide:
- Complimentary tickets to local theaters
- One or two hosted dinners
- Coupons for local restaurants and shops
Submissions
- Plays must be a full-length drama or comedy for adults. No musicals or plays for children are accepted.
- Plays must be previously unproduced and remain so through the end of the festival. Our definition of “unproduced” is included in the submissions guidelines form (below).
Click for the form: (Submission Form)
Or click here to send us your questions.
Returns
If you choose to send a script via the post office, then you may elect to have it returned to you. If so, be sure to include an appropriately-sized S.A.S.E. for that purpose. Be sure to double-check the postage as AWE cannot make up the difference and there is no C.O.D. option.
If using a small box to send six scripts, please enclose your address label to cover the original mailing label together with the required return postage.
Playwright Requirements
Playwrights may be of any nationality and currently reside anywhere in the world. The plays, however, must speak to North American audiences.
Winners are required to arrive in Ashland on the Sunday before the festival opens and to remain through the last of their play readings, for a total of seven days.
Winning playwrights are responsible for their own transportation to and from Ashland. AWE provides transportation to and from the near-by Medford airport, if needed.
About the Office Fee
While Oscar Wilde may not have needed a festival like the ANPF, too many playwrights have the rare opportunity to hear their words spoken by a professional company. AWE exists solely to support that effort.
Given the increase in playwright interest that our ANPF has enjoyed for the past few years, we found our funding supply outpaced by the cost of photocopying the plays submitted to our Readers Committee. As we continue to seek new sources of funding, we ask all playwrights to follow one of two paths:
(1) No fee is required. Send four duplicate, double-sided, bound copies of your work to the PO Box address provided on the submission form. Please follow instructions found on the submission form and include a detached cover sheet with your full contact information. (NOTE: Please use spiral, coil, or perfect binding.)
(2) Alternatively, send one unbound copy plus a check or money order for $15, made payable to ArtWork Enterprises. We will make duplicates and bind the copies for you.
We are working toward accepting your play electronically as a PDF file (no MS Word, no RTF, no TXT) and will enable you to use your VISA card to submit the office fee. We will pay a local copy shop to print the scripts and bind them. However, that feature is not available for 2008 submissions. Soon, we hope!
If you have ideas as to how we can make this process work better for both playwrights and our festival, then please let us know. You can send your ideas to us if click here to send it.