New Human Horizons Virtual Ten-Minute Play Reading Festival

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DEADLINE: September 25, 2020 - 5pm PST

Human beings are magical. Bios and Logos. Words made flesh, muscle and bone animated by hope and desire, belief materialized in deeds, deeds which crystallize our actualities. . . . And the maps of spring always have to be redrawn again, in undared forms.

–Sylvia Wynter, “The Pope Must Have Been Drunk, The King of Castile a Madman.”

The University of Puget Sound’s Department of Theatre Arts is soliciting new 10-minute plays for the New Human Horizons Virtual Ten-Minute Play Reading Festival.

Plays open to all playwrights and any style of play; however, no musicals. We are seeking plays that engage in conversation with Sylvia Wynter’s notion of the Human as both bios and logos, magical, words made flesh. We are interested in plays that re-imagine and re-present new ways of being, living, caring, and loving in the world.

Plays can incorporate the themes of the quote in a variety of ways, for example,

· The relationship between Human beings and language, mythology;

· Representation of the Human and the body and/or flesh;

· New forms of Human interaction;

· Loving and caring beyond modern concepts of Human relationships;

· Connections between Humans and animals, Humans and the environment;

· Intersection between Human life, mortality, and immortal deities;

· Human and hybridity, cyborgs, pre/post-human;

· New imaginings and representations on what it means to be (or not to be) Human;

· Life and living on the margins of the Human as construct.

Plays will be read and evaluated by undergraduate students in the Theatrical Experience classes at University of Puget Sound. This is an exciting opportunity for students, playwrights, and community members to engage and encounter new theatrical works.

Six plays will be selected for the virtual reading festival on December 2nd and 3rd. Selected plays will be announced early November 2020. Playwrights maintain full rights to their material.

Selected playwrights will receive a $150 honorarium.
Submission Guidelines:

· Plays must be unpublished and un-produced;

· written primarily in English;

· incorporate the concept of the Human in some form;

· be no more than ten pages in length;

· not be a musical.

*We prefer plays with 2-6 characters of diverse race, age, gender, and ethnicity.

Submission Process:

· Script should be in standard script format (see: http://www.caryplaywrightsforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/CPF_play_formatting-1.pdf;

· Include page numbers;

· Along with the submission, please submit a separate title page with title of the play and playwright’s contact information (name, email, phone number, and address).

· No personal information should appear anywhere else in the script.

· Accepting digital submissions only. Submit PDF copy to upsplaysubmission@gmail.com