January 14 Deadline Approaching For 2020 STAGE IT! 10-MINUTE PLAY FESTIVAL

January 14 will mark the deadline for entries into the fourth annual Stage It! 10-Minute Play Festival at Center for Performing Arts Bonita Springs. The Festival culminates with a full production of ten of the winning plays March 19-22, 2020.

The Festival has taken on increasingly international appeal having received entries from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Greece, India, and the UK, just to name a few. More than 300 entries are expected for this years' competition.

The audience gets their say at the Festival, which concludes with an "Audience Favorite" award. Last year's Audience Favorite was a bitingly brilliant comedy by Oded Gross of New Jersey. His play Stain was picked up for four royalty-paying productions immediately following the Festival. Previous Audience Favorites were E-Book Meets Treebook by Ellspeth Tilley of New Zealand, and The Nude by W. L. Newkirk of Celebration, Florida.

Festival Director Frank Blocker comments on the tremendous growth of the Festival in its first three years: "We offer two written critiques for each play, several possibilities of production and presentation and I'm told we're very nice to playwrights." Past winner Donald Ralph Lampton echoes this sentiment: "Not only did I get a lot of great feedback and encouragement, but they stay in communication."

The March performance coincides with the publication and release of the Center's fourth short play collection, including all of the twenty winning plays. The intent of the publication is to promote the winning playwrights and provide a handy reference to the reader in finding short plays to produce. Through the book, which includes basic contact information on each playwright, many writers have received further productions.

The Center for Performing Arts Bonita Springs uses the Stage It! platform to produce, present and publish more than 50 playwrights this past year. Several plays that do not appear in the published book are given the stage in the Staged Reading Series and many of the comedies appear in the repertory showcase Funny Shorts LIVE!

Past Stage It! winners include Lynn Aylward (CA), Lela Chesson (NC), Jonathan Josephson (CA), Arnold Kane (CA), Judy Klass (TN), Donald Ralph Lampton (FL), Rex McGregor (Australia), Nancy Rose Ostinato (FL), Jennifer O'Grady (NY), Steffi Rubin (NC), Judd Lear Silverman (NYC), Elisabeth Giffin Speckman (IN) and Trevor Suthers (London).

Playwrights can submit their plays online here: https://www.artcenterbonita.org/stageit/entry.html

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