Bay Street Theater 2025 TITLE WAVE FESTIVAL Submissions Now Open

Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts has announced the opening of submissions for the 11th Annual Title Wave: 2025 New Works Festival on October 1, 2024 (with pre-registration available September 22nd). Bay Street Theater will accept full-length plays from writers of all backgrounds. The Festival is scheduled for May or June 2025 at Bay Street Theater. As is tradition, the festival will introduce four new full-length plays to the Bay Street stage over the course of the weekend.

The 11th Annual Title Wave: 2025 New Works Festival celebrates new and exciting theatrical work in Sag Harbor. Each festival is a valuable opportunity for playwrights to see their work through a rehearsal and into a public presentation with the help of a professional director and actors. Bay Street Theater is proud to support this work and engage our audiences through readings, talkbacks, and open discussions with the artists.

"Part of our responsibility as a part of the larger theatrical ecosystem is to continuously uplift the next phase of the canon and the next generation of playwrights creating the future. It's an honor to seek out this work and bring it to Bay Street," said Literary Manager Hope Villanueva. 

Interested playwrights should go to https://www.baystreet.org/page/title-wave-at-bay-street/ for details of the submission procedures. Submissions will open on October 1, 2024, and will close when a maximum of 300 plays have been submitted or no later than October 31, 2024 (with pre-registration available September 22nd). Late submissions will not be accepted.

Bay Street Theatre will be accepting new full-length plays for our festival to take place in May or June 2025; the exact dates are TBD. Links will open below when live. 

Seeking writers of all backgrounds and plays representing various voices, viewpoints, cultures, and styles. Seeking pieces that have already undergone significant edits and rewrites, are perhaps now in their third or fourth draft, and are at a stage where the addition of a director and actors can be maximized. 

Plays should meet the following REQUIREMENTS: 

• A stand-alone evening of theatre 
• Between 75 and 120 pages in length, unless… 
• One-person shows must be a minimum of 40 pages 
• Can be performed with five actors or less (Doubling allowed only when intrinsic to the style of the piece) 
• Each writer may submit only one play each year 

There are many kinds of plays out there, but we are NOT looking for: 

• Musicals 
• Plays for children or young audiences 
• Early or unpolished drafts 
• Plays that have been submitted to us previously, unless significant changes have been made 
• Plays that have been professionally produced (readings, workshops, or educational productions still qualify) 

Selected plays will be provided with dramaturgical notes from our artistic leadership, rehearsal time in NYC with a director and actors, and a public presentation in Sag Harbor, NY, with an audience feedback session over the course of several days. There is also a small stipend for the playwright's participation. 

We cannot offer transportation to or housing in NYC at this time, though we will transport participants from NYC to Sag Harbor for the day of presentations. 

SUBMISSIONS WILL OPEN SOON IN TWO CYCLES: 

Cycle A – Pre-Registration

• Opens at 2:00 pm Eastern Time on September 22. 
• Fill out an online registration form to hold a submission spot for the play. 
• Plays that have been pre-registered can be submitted until Midnight Eastern Time on Sunday, October 13. 
• Pre-registration will remain open until we receive 150 registrations OR Midnight Eastern Time on September 30. 

Cycle B – Open Submissions 

• Opens at Noon Eastern Time on October 1. 
• Fill out an online registration form and follow the instructions to submit the full script. 
• Submissions will remain open until we reach 300 submissions. 

Questions may be directed to the Literary Manager, Hope Villanueva, at LitManager@BayStreet.org. 

Title Wave: The 2025 New Works Festival is sponsored, in part, by the Town of Southampton and The Neuwirth Foundation Inc. 

Bay Street Theater is a year-round, not-for-profit professional theater and community cultural center that endeavors to innovate, educate, and entertain a diverse community through the practice of the performing arts. It serves as a social and cultural gathering place, an educational resource, and a home for a community of artists.

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