The 2022 Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative

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Deadline: August 1, 2021 by 11:59 p.m. CDT

Submission form

The 2022 Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative welcomes submissions for full-length, unproduced plays by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) playwrights in accordance with the mission statement of the Crossroads Project (see below). A diverse panel of judges including faculty, staff, students, and alumni will select one playwright as the winner.

The winning playwright will receive:

• An invitation to Illinois State University in Bloomington-Normal, IL as a guest artist in residence for a one-week new play development workshop, culminating in a public staged reading. This residency will also include class visits and an all-School colloquium.
• Travel (within the U.S.), housing, and meals during the residency.
• An honorarium of $500 for the residency.

To be eligible to win, the playwright must be available for a one-week residency in late March 2022 (exact dates TBD).

The deadline for submissions is August 1, 2021 by 11:59 p.m. (central daylight time). There is no entry fee. We only accept electronic submissions in PDF format. Because our staff and resources are limited, we can only consider the first 100 submissions.

Please include in your submission:

• A representative sample from your play up to 15 pages. This does not have to be the first 15 pages of the play.
• A synopsis of the play (max. 250 words).
• A character list with short descriptions for each character (age, ethnicity, gender, occupation, family relationships, etc.)
• A playwright’s statement (max. 400 words). In the statement, describe your inspiration for writing the play, address where you are in the development process, and discuss how a workshop in a university setting can facilitate that process.

Please follow these guidelines when submitting your play:
Submissions must be:

• A full-length play.
• Musicals are not accepted. However, plays with limited music requirements are accepted.
• The primary language of the play must be English.
• There are no other restrictions in subject matter or style.
• A playwright may only submit one play per year. The work must be submitted by the playwright rather than a literary agent or other third party.
• Submissions must be the original work of the playwright, which may include adaptations of fictional or factual material. Translations of other playwrights’ work are not accepted.
• The submitting playwright must be either the owner and controller of the copyright or provide written proof that they have acquired the legal right to use copyrighted material in their work.
• Plays that have been produced or published professionally are ineligible for the competition. Plays that have been presented through staged readings, workshops, university productions, or community theatre productions are eligible.
• A playwright may submit a play that they submitted in a previous year (including finalists) if there have been substantive revisions.

The Crossroads Project reserves the right to accept or reject any submitted play for any reason.

We will contact semi-finalists by the end of October 2021 and ask them to submit the full play.

The winning playwright will be notified by mid-January 2022.

Inquiries about the Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative should be directed to:

Kee-Yoon Nahm, D.F.A.

Assistant Professor in Theatre Studies

Chair, The Crossroads Project

Email: knahm@ilstu.edu