web site
Deadline: June 1, 2020
Plays chosen will have the opportunity to be presented live at the
award-winning Off-Broadway theatre, Urban Stages, located at 259 West 30th Street New York NY
While nothing can fully replace live theater, the staff at Urban Stages invites ALL playwrights to participate in our next 10-minute play competition, THE ACRONYM PLAYS. This opportunity will support our goal to discover and nurture new works by artists of diverse cultural backgrounds.
From the safety of your home, we encourage you to create a brand new play using the springboard and guidelines, detailed below, that will be reviewed by a panel of professional theatre artists. On a rolling basis, the readers will recommend compelling, well-constructed plays to Bara Swain, our Creative Consultant, who has been spearheading our staged reading festivals for “Urban Stages New Pages” since its inception. If your play is selected, the script will be uploaded to our website and accessible to the public for reading and, yes, commenting on Urban Stages’ FB page (@urban.stages)! After all, this will be the first time that your words will be presented!
Acronyms! Yes, that is the springboard for our next ten-minute play competition at Urban Stages. Use your imagination! Acronyms are defined by Merriam-Webster as “a word formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term.” Huh? Okay, we’re not going to be heavy handed during this chaotic time. Since an acronym is a kind of abbreviation, we’ll also accept plays that are inspired by a shortened form of a word or phrase. WTF! … and I’m not referring to offensive slang, LOL. WTF is also the acronym for the Williamstown Theatre Festival and Women’s Tri-Fitness Competition. Oh, and LOL can refer to the now mostly obsolete “lots of luck” or “lots of love” used in letter-writing or, yes, Land of Lincoln, the official state slogan of Illinois, also retired from use.
Your challenge is to write a 10-minute play using an acronym or an abbreviation as the springboard for your piece. There are a wealth of acronyms to choose and explore, from social media, technological, economic and environmental acronyms to political, medical, digital, customer service and school logo acronyms.
As always, everyone – the writers and Urban Stages staff – are donating their time and talent for this online adventure and future live readings at our theatre home in the heart of Manhattan.
NOW, HERE ARE THE RULES
SUBMITTING YOUR PLAY
It will be helpful if you state your name and the acronym that inspired your work in the subject line. Please include a summary of your play in the body of your email and a bio. If you have a website, let us know that, too. The authors of the plays chosen for “publication” will be notified prior to uploading to the web. While our assumption is that we have your permission to present your play in the written form on our website, we will confirm your approval at that time. Note that if we need to set a limit of submissions at a later date, you’ll hear from us.
Submit your play to Bara@UrbanStages.org. Do you have any questions? Reach out to Bara at the same email address. I’m looking forward to hearing from you!
Deadline: June 1, 2020
Plays chosen will have the opportunity to be presented live at the
award-winning Off-Broadway theatre, Urban Stages, located at 259 West 30th Street New York NY
While nothing can fully replace live theater, the staff at Urban Stages invites ALL playwrights to participate in our next 10-minute play competition, THE ACRONYM PLAYS. This opportunity will support our goal to discover and nurture new works by artists of diverse cultural backgrounds.
From the safety of your home, we encourage you to create a brand new play using the springboard and guidelines, detailed below, that will be reviewed by a panel of professional theatre artists. On a rolling basis, the readers will recommend compelling, well-constructed plays to Bara Swain, our Creative Consultant, who has been spearheading our staged reading festivals for “Urban Stages New Pages” since its inception. If your play is selected, the script will be uploaded to our website and accessible to the public for reading and, yes, commenting on Urban Stages’ FB page (@urban.stages)! After all, this will be the first time that your words will be presented!
Acronyms! Yes, that is the springboard for our next ten-minute play competition at Urban Stages. Use your imagination! Acronyms are defined by Merriam-Webster as “a word formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term.” Huh? Okay, we’re not going to be heavy handed during this chaotic time. Since an acronym is a kind of abbreviation, we’ll also accept plays that are inspired by a shortened form of a word or phrase. WTF! … and I’m not referring to offensive slang, LOL. WTF is also the acronym for the Williamstown Theatre Festival and Women’s Tri-Fitness Competition. Oh, and LOL can refer to the now mostly obsolete “lots of luck” or “lots of love” used in letter-writing or, yes, Land of Lincoln, the official state slogan of Illinois, also retired from use.
Your challenge is to write a 10-minute play using an acronym or an abbreviation as the springboard for your piece. There are a wealth of acronyms to choose and explore, from social media, technological, economic and environmental acronyms to political, medical, digital, customer service and school logo acronyms.
As always, everyone – the writers and Urban Stages staff – are donating their time and talent for this online adventure and future live readings at our theatre home in the heart of Manhattan.
NOW, HERE ARE THE RULES
- Your play must use one (or more) acronyms/abbreviations in your play, or serve as the springboard for your script.
- Write for 2-3 characters only.
- Maximum length is 10 pages. As we roll this program out, please submit your play in Word or PDF in the event that we need to re-format for our website.
- Dazzle me! The link below provides lists of common acronyms in chat, military, government and business, as well as informative acronyms (i.e. ADD, OTC, DOA, DIY) and acronyms as identifiers (i.e. AA, NFL, SWF, ESPN). You may also be inspired by googling “Acronyms” and searching images. https://abbreviations.yourdictionary.com/articles/common-accronyms.html
- Scripts can be submitted beginning on April 1 through June 1, with a possible extension. We are currently selecting judges and designing our website to support this effort. Plays will be “published” on a rolling basis.
SUBMITTING YOUR PLAY
It will be helpful if you state your name and the acronym that inspired your work in the subject line. Please include a summary of your play in the body of your email and a bio. If you have a website, let us know that, too. The authors of the plays chosen for “publication” will be notified prior to uploading to the web. While our assumption is that we have your permission to present your play in the written form on our website, we will confirm your approval at that time. Note that if we need to set a limit of submissions at a later date, you’ll hear from us.
Submit your play to Bara@UrbanStages.org. Do you have any questions? Reach out to Bara at the same email address. I’m looking forward to hearing from you!