Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Call for Scripts: Emerging Writers of Color Deadline: 4/1

Call for scripts!
IGNITION: Emerging Writers of Color
Funded by The Ford Foundation

Victory Gardens Theater announces IGNITION: Emerging Writers of Color, funded by The Ford Foundation. The goal of the initiative is threefold: to introduce exceptional new writers of color to Victory Gardens; to help develop dynamic new work for mainstage production at the theater; to set up an ongoing network of interested producers and theaters to jumpstart future productions around the country. We are inviting you, as a playwright of color under the age of 40, to submit an un-produced play for consideration in Victory Gardens Theater’s Emerging Writers of Color Festival. Six new plays will be presented in a festival of readings tentatively scheduled for August 7 through August 10, 2008. These plays will be directed by leading artists of color from Chicago and around the country. Following the readings, two of the plays will be selected for two week intensive workshops during Victory Gardens’ 08-09 season. Our ultimate aim is to produce one, if not both, of these final scripts in the 09-10 season. If your script is chosen for the Festival, Victory Gardens will provide you with housing and transportation as well as a stipend for one rehearsal week beginning July 30th through the final event of the Festival weekend. You may send a script as soon as possible but no later than April 1, 2008.

Victory Gardens Theater, founded in l974, is the recipient of the 2001 Tony Award for Regional Theater. For thirty-four years the theater’s mission has been to develop new plays for the American Theater. Victory Gardens is a leader in its commitment to inclusion and diversity, and has been recognized by the Ford Foundation for translating this core value into mainstage productions by writers of color each season. The theater has a fourteen member Playwrights Ensemble whose membership also reflects the diversity of the mission. Our home is the newly renovated historic Biograph Theater, a 299 seat theater with state of the art equipment.

Submission Deadline: April 1, 2008
Announcement of Six Festival Participants: June 1, 2008
Festival Dates: August 7 – August 10, 2008

Submission Guidelines:
-The initiative is open to all playwrights of color under 40 years old. The theater hopes that a diversity of perspective will inform the plays, but the plays do not have to deal specifically with race issues.
-Plays must unproduced and must be in English or primarily in English.-Victory Gardens Theater defines “emerging writer” as a writer who has not had a full production at a major regional theater.
-Plays must be submitted by mail, not electronically, and should not be permanently bound.
-Playwrights may only submit one full-length play.
-Please include a biography or resume.
-Please include a return addressed postcard if you wish to be notified that the script arrived. All scripts will be recycled after reading and will not be returned.
-There is no submission fee.

Submit to:
Aaron Carter, Literary Manager
Ignition: Emerging Writers of Color
Victory Gardens Theater
2257 N. Lincoln Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60614

If you have any questions, please call Aaron at 773-328-2142 or Sandy Shinner, Associate Artistic Director and Project Director, at 773-549-5788 ext 2139.

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