The Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival

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Deadline: December 15, 2020

The Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival honors new American plays that provide dynamic performance opportunities for college-aged actors.

The festival endeavors both to recognize playwrights for their outstanding work and to provide a resource for universities across the country to identify dynamic plays with robust roles for college-aged actors for production at their institutions.

Seeking plays that have:

• A cast of primarily (or exclusively) characters in their teens and twenties.
• A mid- to large-sized cast (i.e., at least five actors, preferably at least ten).
• Significant representation (in both number and quality) of roles for female-identifying actors.
• Dynamic, fully-drawn roles to challenge student actors.
• Thematic values that will speak to college-aged artists and audience members.

The festival also places a value on plays that have the potential to provide performance opportunities to actors from under-represented groups.

Plays should not have had a previous full production. Workshops and readings are fine.

Finalists for the festival’s top prize will receive airfare and housing to participate in the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival on the campus of the Jeanine Larson Dobbins Conservatory of Theatre & Dance at Southeast Missouri State University in the summer of 2021. Staged readings of the finalists’ plays will be presented as part of the festival, and the winner of the prize will be announced at the end of the week-long event.

The winning play will receive:

• A world premiere production in the 2021-2022 Dobbins Conservatory of Theatre & Dance theatre season.
• Consideration of the play for publication by Concord Theatricals, the world’s most significant theatrical company, comprising the catalogs of R&H Theatricals, Samuel French, Tams-Witmark and The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection.
• A meeting for the playwright with new play acquisition staff at Concord Theatricals.

Submissions for the Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival should be submitted by December 15, 2020, to:

Kitt Lavoie
Artistic Director
The Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival

lanfordwilsonfest@semo.edu


Please include “Lanford Wilson Festival Submission” in the subject line.

Submissions should include .pdf copies of:

• Complete script
• Brief synopsis of the play (100-250 words)
• Character breakdown, including ages
• Author(s) bio (100-250 words)
• List of previous readings and workshops (if applicable)