Fellowship For Performing Arts Launches Inaugural Clive Awards Playwriting Competition
The $25,000 first prize winner and $15,000 second prize winner will be announced in January 2024.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Jan. 31, 2023
Fellowship for Performing Arts - producers of stage versions of The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce and C.S. Lewis On Stage: The Most Reluctant Convert - is launching the inaugural Clive Awards, a playwriting competition to encourage new plays from a Christian worldview, aimed at diverse, general audiences.
Named in honor of Clive Staples (C.S.) Lewis, submissions for the competition will be accepted beginning Jan. 31, 2023, with an Aug. 31, 2023, deadline for entries. The $25,000 first prize winner and $15,000 second prize winner will be announced in January 2024. Both plays also will receive a developmental reading. For complete submission details, frequently asked questions and much more, visit CliveAwards.com.
"For 30 years, FPA has produced theatre - and now film - from a Christian worldview that is meant to compete in the cultural marketplace and engage a diverse audience," said FPA Founder and Artistic Director Max McLean. "Now, through the generosity of our supporters, we are able to encourage others in pursuit of this mission."
Most recently, FPA launched a national tour of its newest play, C.S. Lewis On Stage: Further Up & Further In, a standalone production that continues the story of Lewis' life begun in The Most Reluctant Convert. A film version of Convert premiered in cinemas in November 2021 and is available now on Amazon Prime, Google Play, Apple TV, YouTube and PureFlix.
Other productions from the New York City-based theatre company include Martin Luther on Trial, a new staged version of Paradise Lost and revivals of A Man for All Seasons and Shadowlands. FPA regularly produces a New York season of new plays and revivals, as well as touring in leading performing arts venues nationally. FPA also produced The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce in New York. Screwtape ran for nine months and over 300 performances at The Westside Theatre.
Through its Campus Initiative, The Most Reluctant Convert - adapted by and starring McLean - has played at major colleges and universities from coast to coast, including at Princeton, Brown, University of California-Berkeley, University of Michigan, Duke and Northwestern among many others. A 2023 campus tour is underway now.
"We're excited to connect with literary artists who are inspired by our history of producing
smart, imaginative, multilayered stories and adaptations from a Christian worldview," said FPA Literary Manager Christa Scott-Reed, who is managing The Clive Awards and directed the most recent version of The Great Divorce and the revival of A Man for All Seasons. "It's a privilege to play a role in expanding opportunities for writers who are working at the intersection of faith and culture."
About Fellowship for Performing Arts
Founded by Artistic Director Max McLean, Fellowship for Performing Arts is a New York City-based production company whose mission is to produce theatre and film from a Christian worldview to engage a diverse audience. In addition to annual seasons at Theatre Row in New York City, it produces coast-to-coast tours in both major performing arts venues and university theatres. McLean is the 2022 recipient of the C.S. Lewis Foundation Award for Distinguished Lifetime Contributions in Faith and Dramatic Arts and a Jeff Award winner, the Chicago theatre community's highest honor.
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