The Grand Valley State University Shakespeare Festival is inviting submissions of scripts for its third annual New Plays-In-Process competition. The competition is open to playwrights around the nation.
The plays will be developed locally with community directors and actors, and produced in Grand Rapids and on GVSU's Allendale campus as part of the Shakespeare Festival events between September 30 and October 20. The two winning playwrights will be invited to GVSU for a two-week residency in order to rewrite and fine tune their scripts, together with a team of local stage directors, stage managers and actors. Staged reading performances are tentatively scheduled for October 17 ¿ 20.
New Plays-In-Process aims to aid in the continuing development of new scripts by providingplaywrights with a forum for constructive criticism by directors, actors, producers and audience members, says Roger Ellis, director of GVSU's annual Shakespeare Festival.
More than 250 authors, writing institutes, producing theatres and others receive special notification of the competition each spring. The Shakespeare Festival receives about 50 submissions annually from playwrights across the nation.
Past winners of the New Plays-In-Process competition have praised the project highly, because it concentrates effort in script development rather than in showcasing fully staged productions of finished new scripts that may resist changes, Ellis explains.
New York playwrights Adam Kraar (1998) and Stephen Packard (1999), as well as regional writers William Borden from Minneapolis (1999) and Ric Averill from Lawrence, Kansas (1998), have all enjoyed continuing success with their plays following their Shakespeare Festival experience. Kraar and Averill had excerpts of their work published as monologs in 1999 by Contemporary Drama Service; and Borden's play Turtle Island Blues will be published in full by Contemporary Drama Service in 2001.
The Shakespeare Festival created the project in 1998 in order to provide an annual working lab in the Midwest for playwrights across the nation, Ellis says. The nearest professional theatres engaging in similar play development programs are located either in Chicago or at the Actors Theatre of Louisville's acclaimed Humana Festival each spring. The New Plays-In-Process competition also provides the university-based Shakespeare Festival with an opportunity to train students in the important skills of acting in new plays, and to contribute to the cultural life of the west Michigan theatre community.
There is no fee for submission, and writers may send up to two scripts for consideration. In addition to providing writers with paid ensembles of local directors, stage managers, and actors to develop the scripts, the Shakespeare Festival also provides all transportation and lodging for the authors, and a $300 royalty for each play produced.
Deadline for submission is May 1, 2000. Full details about the competition, the procedures for entering, and entry forms are available from the Shakespeare Festival's home page: www.gvsu.edu/shakes.
Playwrights may also write for information to GVSU Shakespeare Festival, 121 Lake Superior Hall, Allendale, Michigan, 49401.
