NOTE: Letter of recommendation required.
In keeping with the Firehouse Theatre’s mission of promoting new work by American artists, the Festival of New American Plays began in 2002 as a way to encourage and incubate new plays by established and emerging playwrights in the USA. It has become a grass-roots event with substantial involvement from the community, as hundreds of scripts submitted to the Playwriting Contest from all over the country are read by volunteer readers from the Greater-Richmond area. Each script is read twice (more if it needs a tiebreaker), and scripts with “two thumbs up” are passed on for further evaluation to an expert panel of judges, who then pick two finalists for a four-night Festival “showdown.” Members of the festival audience who have seen staged readings of both finalists’ work cast a vote for their favorite play, and the winner of the festival is chosen by the public. Festival winners receive cash prizes.
Submission Guidelines
- Full length scripts only.
- Plays must not have been previously produced. Readings are acceptable if no
admission was charged and actors read from the script. - Submissions should be made in standard manuscript form and with no fancy binding. This means no discs, no e-mails. Please just use a binder clip to secure the script pages, no folders, no plastic covers, etc. All author information must be on a title page separate from the body of the manuscript and no reference to the author is permitted in the body of the script.
- Scripts must be accompanied by a letter of recommendation from a theater company or individual familiar with your work. Letters of recommendation do not need to be specific to the play submitted; they may be general recommendations of the playwrights work. All letters must be received with the script, not under separate cover. Scripts received without a letter will not be considered.
- Entries must be postmarked no later than June 30, 2012 but no earlier than January 1, 2012.
- Due to volume of mail, manuscripts cannot be returned.
Send submissions to:
Firehouse Theatre Project
11th Festival of New American Plays
1609 W. Broad St.
Richmond, VA 23220
Two winners receive staged readings and prizes of $1,000 and $500. In the case of a tie, each winner will receive $750.
Winners will be announced March 1, 2013.