Deadline: June 1, 2023
The Open Meadows Foundation created the Nancy Dean Lesbian Playwright Award in honor of Nancy Dean.
The Nancy Dean Lesbian Playwriting award is to honor a woman who was at the forefront of Lesbian, queer, gay, genderqueer, gender-nonconforming, trans, intersex and people of color movements. We honor her focus and writing on Lesbian relationships before the time of the Stonewall rebellion. Her writings were the precursor to social change. In that spirit of struggle and often hidden desire we encourage the submission of new plays that address the conflict of lesbian, queer or gay, trans and nonbinary women struggling to live and love their best lives. In these times of social definition and refinement the age-old conflict of acceptance and the right to live our true lives as we truly are is still our continuing fight which is refined and embolden by each new generation.
We understand people have their own language for their gender and sexuality. We are open to submission from people who are lesbian, queer or gay, trans and nonbinary.
As we are a small family foundation with an all-volunteer board, we must rely on nominations to identify potential recipients. We are asking professors, teachers, artistic directors, directors, literary managers, actors, writers, and others to nominate promising writers. As we want to be inclusive, we will allow people to self-nominate. The following are our guidelines:
- Writer is lesbian, queer or gay or nonbinary;
- Writer has written at least one play;
- Writer is writing plays about lesbians;
- Writer is committed to writing plays and furthering her/their career;
- Writer is interested in receiving the award.
Include the writer’s resume and website or other social media links. The deadline for submissions is June 1, 2023. We will announce the recipients October 31, 2023. We have been granting three awards of $5000, $2500 and $1250.