Thornton Wilder Playwriting Contest

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Playscripts, Inc. is partnering with the Thornton Wilder Estate to launch a contest based on Thornton Wilder's Playlets.

Choose from 12 of Wilder's three-minute masterpieces and use this play as a foundation to create your own expanded adaptation.

The winning play will be published and licensed by Playscripts, Inc., premiered at NYC's LaGuardia Arts High School of Music, Art and Performing Arts in Fall 2011, and promoted for future productions.

Guidelines:

* Duration: The playing time should be 30 minutes.

* Cast size: The cast should include at least 12 roles, and may include many more. If you would like to propose a play with 20 roles, by all means do so, as long as double-casting is possible.

* Content: All material should be PG-13 or cleaner, as these plays will be promoted for high school one-act performances.

* Tech requirements: No extreme technical constraints. The play should be as imaginative as possible without too many realistic necessities.

Choose one of the following Playlets:

Nascuntur Poetae
Proserpina and the Devil
Fanny Otcott
Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came
The Penny that Beauty Spent
Brother Fire
The Angel on the Ship
The Message and the Jehanne
Centaurs
Leviathan
Christmas Interludes II
Flamingo Red

You can read all of the playlets here.

Judges for final round include: Ken Ludwig (Playwright, Lend Me A Tenor, Crazy for You); Julie Vatain (Translator/adaptor and professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris); Jackson Bryer (Thornton Wilder Society President).

To submit, please visit www.playscripts.com/submit and fill out the regular submission form. In the Comments field, write: WILDER CONTEST ENTRY. Please also indicate which playlet you have adapted if it is not clear from the title of your play.

Submissions must be received by June 15, 2011 so get writing!

Note: The Playlets listed above are in the public domain. It is therefore not necessary to seek permission to perform or publish works based on these plays.