The Relentless Award 2018

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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.

Deadlines:
Submissions will be accepted from March 1, 2018 – May 15, 2018 through Submittable.com, see link at bottom of this page.

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 please see our FAQ here.

​Submit your play.

You will be directed to our submissions platform, Submittable, where you will be asked to create an account if you do not have one.