Broadway Bound Theatre Festival 'Where Playwrights Take Center Stage' Reinvents the NYC Festival Scene

"The only curated theatre festival dedicated to transforming playwrights into producers", Broadway Bound Theatre Festival was formed in response to the current NYC theatre festival experience, which can feel more like a crash course in production than an opportunity for creative development.

Celebrating its first season, which will commence in July 2017, BBTF is currently accepting submissions from local and international playwrights of the highest calibre to be one of the 20 participating shows performing at The Theatre at the 14th Street Y.

BBTF is not a competition that pits playwright-against-playwright, but a community-building, joyous celebration of staged theatre, focused on long-term growth of playwrights as artists and their productions as commercially viable pieces of theatre - and that is where the game changing begins.

Come the submission deadline, every playwright who has applied will receive a note explaining why they were or were not accepted to the festival (a very new concept on the scene). The 2017 participants will then benefit from industry panelists' hands-on expertise via weekly information packets and videos on how to prepare for the festival and move their story from page to stage (tips on everything from securing a rehearsal space, to casting, to building an audience). In addition, during the festival, feedback sessions with the panelists and fellow participants will be hosted at the end of each show (every play receiving three performances), and free developmental workshops from industry professionals are planned with the theme of how to keep up momentum post festival, to ensure playwrights understand what's involved in getting their show to a bigger venue for a full run.

"That's how we're different," says Lenore Skomal, festival creator and director. "BBTF is the brainchild of former festival staffers and participants who witnessed other theatre festivals in this city pretty much just accepting scripts and then leaving everything up to participants to figure out (marketing, fundraising/budgeting, management, planning, and more). Festivals should be a valuable experience, but the enormous learning curve can be, and is, daunting for any new playwright."

"We want our playwrights emerge from our festival motivated, which is why we named it 'Broadway Bound.' Most playwrights envision Broadway as the brass ring - something to shoot for, so to speak. While we're not making any promises - as most theatre folks in NYC know, there is no magic formula - we believe that our process will help turn any playwright with the desire and gumption into a producer. We want our playwrights to grow with us, as we create something that is much greater and more powerful than the sum total of its participants. I feel it's what is really missing on the theatre scene. One massive, tour de force that works together, not at cross-purposes with itself, and can affect change."

The Broadway Bound Theatre Festival is currently accepting 60 to 90 minute plays (all genres are welcome and any topic is acceptable). No musicals or dance, please. As a festival celebrating new work, shows that have received prior commercial productions are not eligible. Plays that have had readings or been workshopped are eligible. Submission deadline is March 15, 2017.

Find The Broadway Bound Theatre Festival on Facebook @BroadwayBoundFestival,
Twitter: @BroadwayBoundTF | #BroadwayBoundFestival and online at www.broadwayboundfestival.com

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The Broadway Bound Theatre Festival was created by bestselling author, former journalist and playwright Lenore Skomal and her husband Rick Sayers (former newspaper executive). It is presented in conjunction with Abby Judd and Melissa Gordon of Bear in Mind Creative, a boutique agency specializing in branding, web design and marketing, as well as General Management and Production for Theatre, TV and Film: www.BearInMindCreative.com
All panelists donate their time to collaborate and give critiques, nurturing the concept that when one succeeds, we all succeed.

Our goal is to create a growing community of collaborative artists who cheer for each other's successes as they continue on the path of creating great theatre for themselves and their audiences. In that spirit, BBFT does not take a percentage of future revenues, as is the norm with other theatre festivals. Nor does the festival ask for Producer Points. We're simply here to support.