Call for Plays from playwrights of color under 40 years old

Victory Gardens Theater announces the second IGNITION festival,
supported by Allstate Insurance Company, lead corporate sponsor, and
William and Orli Staley. The festival that brought you the
critically-acclaimed Year Zero by Michael Golamco and Kristoffer
Diaz's smash hit The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is searching for
another round of breakthrough plays. IGNITION creates a pipeline to
production for the work of young playwrights of color. By providing
this platform for the next generation, IGNITION launches new writers
into the national spotlight and continues Victory Gardens' core
mission of originating new plays that serve diverse communities.

Six new plays will be presented in a festival of readings scheduled
for the week of August 15, 2010. 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
intensive workshops during Victory Gardens' 2010-11 season. Victory
Gardens will produce at least one of these final scripts in the
2011-12 season.

Victory Gardens provides selected playwrights with housing and
transportation as well as a stipend for a one rehearsal week beginning
August 15th through the final event of the festival weekend.

Victory Gardens Theater, founded in 1974, 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. In 2008, IGNITION was supported by the Ford Foundation in
recognition of the theater's history of translating this core value
into mainstage productions by writers of color each season. The
theater has a 14 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 and a 109 seat studio
theater both with state of the art equipment.

For further information, please call literary manager Aaron Carter at
773-328-2142 or Sandy Shinner, Associate Artistic Director and Project
Director, at 773-549-5788 ext 2139.

Submission Deadline: April 15, 2010
Announcement of Six Festival Participants: June 15, 2010
Festival Dates: August 15 - August 22, 2010

Submission Guidelines:

    * There is no restriction as to subject matter. Victory Gardens
hopes that a diversity of perspective will inform the
plays, but the plays do not have to deal specifically with race,
ethnicity or identity issues.
    * The initiative is open to all playwrights of color under 40 years old.
    * Playwrights must not yet have received a full production at a
major regional theater.
    * Submitted plays must be unproduced and must be in English or
primarily in English.
    * Playwrights may only submit one full-length play.
    * Plays must be submitted by mail, not electronically, and should
not be permanently bound.
    * 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: IGNITION
      Victory Gardens Theater
      2257 N. Lincoln Avenue
      Chicago, Illinois 60614 60614

Victory Gardens Theater | 773.549.5788