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The Relentless Award, established in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman and his pursuit of truth in the theater, is the largest annual cash prize in American theater awarded to a playwright in recognition of a new play.
What we are looking for:
• Plays that are challenging.
• Plays that exhibit fearlessness.
• Plays that are not mainstream.
• Plays that exude passion.
• Plays that are relentlessly truthful.
The American Playwriting Foundation encourages submissions by first-time playwrights, playwrights of color, and playwrights of all gender identifications.
Prize:
• The author of the Relentless Award-winning play will receive $45,000.
• The winning playwright will have the option to have the winning play published by the Dramatists Play Service.
• The winning playwright will have a week-long residency at SPACE on Ryder Farm, an artist residency program housed on a working organic farm in Brewster, New York. The author can elect to have a director, a dramaturg and actors join him or her while in residence on the farm.
• The selected play will have a national roll-out through the Ed Vassallo Relentless Reading Series, established to help bring to life and develop the winning play by presenting a series of staged readings at some of the top theaters across the United States.
• When the winning play is selected, Finalists and Semifinalists will also be named. Here's a list of past Relentless Award winners, finalists, and semifinalists.
Deadlines:
2019 submissions open on May 1, 2019. The deadline is June 15, 2019. Please join our mailing list to receive updates once that information is live.
Eligibility/Criteria for Submission:
• Play must be unproduced.
• Authors must have either United States citizenship, possess a green card, or currently reside in the United States and have lived here for at least four years.
• Plays with a producer, producing organization, or theater attached for future production are not eligible.
• One-act plays, musicals and plays for children are not eligible.
• The author must be at least 21 years old.
How to submit your play:
When submissions open, there will be link to Submittable.com at the bottom of this page that you can use to submit your play.
• NOTE: please DO NOT have your name or other identifying info (email/phone number) on any of your manuscript pages. Please also exclude agent info, development info, and dedications. This will preserve the author's anonymity for the judges.
• Please provide your script file in pdf (rather than Word documents), with the title format: TITLE OF PLAY.pdf. Do not include your name in the file script title.
• You'll receive confirmation that your script has been received. As submissions are processed manually, please allow up to two weeks to receive this confirmation.
For even more information: