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Monday, April 24, 2017

EMOS ~ Ecodrama Playwrights Festival & Symposium ~ 2018

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Hosted by the Department of Theatre and Dance
At the University of Alaska Anchorage in Spring 2018

CALL FOR SCRIPTS

First place Award: Cash prize and workshop production
Second place Award: Cash prize and possible workshop production
Honorable mentions: public staged reading

Deadline for Submissions is May 1, 2017.
The Earth Matters on Stage (EMOS) Ecodrama Playwrights Festival was founded in 2004 by Theresa May and Larry Fried in order to call forth and foster new dramatic works that respond to the ecological crisis, and, as part of that response, to explore new possibilities of being in relationship with the more-than-human world. EMOS calls for new plays that not only focus on current and historic environmental issues, but also looks for plays that enliven and transform our experience of the world around us, that inspire us to listen better, and instill a deeper or more complex sense of our ecological communities.[1] If your play does any of these things, send it to us!

The EMOS Festival includes workshop performance(s) of the winning script(s), readings, talkbacks and discussions of the scripts that are finalists in the Ecodrama Playwrights’ Contest. The concurrent symposium will include speakers, panels, practice-based workshops, and discussions that advance scholarship in the area of arts, ecology and climate change, and help foster development of new works.

Guidelines for Playwrights:

Scripts must be original works which have not been published and have not had an Equity or full professional premiere production. (Readings or informal workshop productions are okay.)

In general, we are looking for plays that do one or more of the following:
- Engage the personal, local, regional and/or global implications of man-made climate change. - Put an ecological issue or environmental event/crisis at the center of the dramatic action or theme of the play.
- Expose and illuminate issues of environmental justice.
- Explore the relationship between sustainability, community and cultural diversity.
- Interpret community to include our ecological community, and/or give voice or character to the land, or elements of the land.
- Theatrically explore the connection between people and place, human and non-human, and/or between culture and nature.
- Grow out of the playwright’s personal relationship to the land and the ecology of a specific place.
- Theatrically examine the reciprocal relationship between human, animal and plant communities.
- Celebrate the joy of the ecological world in which humans participate.
- Offer an imagined world view that illuminates our ecological condition or reflects on the ecological crisis from a unique cultural or philosophical perspective.
- Critique or satirize patterns of exploitation, consumption, or other ingrained values that are ecologically unsustainable.
- Are written specifically to be performed in an unorthodox venue such as a natural or environmental setting, and for which that setting is a not merely a backdrop, but an integral part of the intention of the play.

In addition, for this Alaska EMOS Festival, we especially encourage submissions which also:
- Engage with cultural impacts of man-made climate change.
- Are written from an Alaska Native perspective.
- Explore or depict the circumpolar North, the Arctic, or the Antarctic.
- Are set in or are about Alaska.
- Are written by Alaskans AND which engage with the general themes (above).

Submission Process:

We are looking for full-length plays that are written primarily (though not necessarily exclusively) in English. Submitted plays should address the thematic guidelines as listed above. Deadline: May 1, 2017. Early submission is highly encouraged.

Please note: we will NOT consider:
- ten-minute plays
- one-act plays (unless they are longer than 30 minutes in length)
- musicals (though we love them, we cannot financially accommodate their production for this festival)

We are only accepting electronic submissions in PDF format. Please do not submit paper manuscripts, as they will not be considered.

Please follow these submission guidelines:

1. Send an email to uaa_emosfestival@alaska.edu with the following in the body of the email:

- Play Title
- Name of Author(s)
- Author’s contact information (email and phone)
- A synopsis of the play and cast requirements.

2. Attach a PDF copy of your script with NO IDENTIFYING MARKS (beyond the play’s title) to the email.
- If you have an especially large file, you may send a link to a Dropbox, Google Drive, or other filesharing site so that we can download the file.

Email all submissions by May 1, 2017 to:

uaa_emosfestival@alaska.edu

Questions?

Contact Dr. Brian Cook, 2018 EMOS Chair, at bcook25@alaska.edu or uaa_emosfestival@alaska.edu

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