Parsnip Ship seeks plays for 2018

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THE PARSNIP SHIP IS ALWAYS LOOKING FOR NEW PLAYS AND NEW VOICES...
and for Season Four, we are specifically looking for plays written by playwrights of color.

As we believe there are as many distinctive styles and voices as there are playwrights, we remain open to a wide range of plays that will engage audiences in an intimate setting and on a podcast format. We see our recordings as a fun collaborative effort among us, the playwright, the directors, musicians and the actors! Before you send in your play for consideration, take a listen to one of our episodes from our past seasons.

Each play selected as part of our season will have one evening to be recorded in front of a live audience as a reading.  A guest musician is paired with the play to supplement the experience of hearing the text. We finish off the recording with a short and personal interview between the playwright and our host, Iyvon Edebiri. The recording is then edited and released as a podcast soon after.

The standard format for our live recordings are as follows (and is adjusted according to the length of the play):

• Host Introduction
• Mini-playwright interview
• First song by musical guest
• Act 1 of play
• Second song by musical guest
• Act 2 of play
• Third song by musical guest
• Host and playwright interview
• Outro / Thank Yous
• Fourth song by musical guest

Questions we like to ask ourselves as we consider a play:

1. Does the play not only work, but excel in an audio only format?
2. Is the play exciting and unexpected?
3. Does the play express diversity in its perspective, voice, or content?
4. Is this play engaged in socially conscious and civic dialogue?
5. What would the world be missing if it didn’t have this play?

Due to last year’s overwhelming volume of submissions, this year we are doing a two-round submission cycle for Season Four. We are asking playwrights to submit the first 15 pages of their plays for consideration of Round One evaluations. If selected, playwrights will be asked to send their full length draft or complete script, for Round Two evaluation. We will be accepting submissions by individual playwrights, playwrights/director teams, playwright/director/music teams from March 24th - April 27th, 2018 for Season Four (September 2018 - June 2019). We fully encourage individual playwrights to apply; our Artistic team will work with you to pair a director, cast, and musical guest from our pool of amazing collaborators.  
The logistical requirements to know before applying:

• We can ONLY accommodate up to 6 readers (this includes a reader for stage directions)
• A play must be no more than 90 minutes.
• Selected playwrights must come to an episode prior to their scheduled episode, especially if they’ve never attended a live recording of The Parsnip Ship
• We prefer New York City or locally based playwrights
• Our playwright must be present for the live recording (and usually rehearsals too)
• We can accommodate 3 inputs for our musical guest, i.e. 1 mic and 2 instruments/2 mics and 1 instrument/3 mins

Please follow the instructions to apply via the submit form.