17th Annual Maine Playwrights Festival Seeks Script Submissions

Acorn Productions, producers of the annual Maine Playwrights Festival, announces that they have begun accepting scripts for this year's seventeenth edition of the state's long-running incubator for new plays by local playwrights. Anybody living in Maine is eligible to submit a new play between 8 and 30 minutes in length for consideration in the festival. The deadline for submissions is December 2nd.

"At the Maine Playwrights Festival, we're excited to not only to showcase local playwrights' work, but also to provide ways for them to develop their craft as writers," says Daniel Burson, the festival's Artistic Director. "In addition to hearing their words come to life in a rehearsal process, this year's selected playwrights will be mentored by the festival's 2018 professional playwright-in-residence, Callie Kimball, to rewrite and hone their scripts."

Acorn's 2018 Maine Playwrights Festival will be comprised of two weekends of fully staged performances of short plays, to be performed at the Studio Theater at Portland Stage (25 Forest Avenue) in Portland, April 26 to May 5, 2018. Acorn anticipates selecting 5 to 8 plays for production this year. The selected playwrights will receive extensive support revising their pieces during a workshop phase before the plays go into rehearsals. In addition to the festival productions, several playwrights whose work is not selected for inclusion in the full festival will also be offered the opportunity to workshop their plays with professional playwright-in-residence Callie Kimball and have them shared in an evening of dramatic readings. Writers who are interested in submitting a new play for consideration should visit Acorn's website at www.acorn-productions.org for complete guidelines and to download a script submission form.

The Maine Playwrights Festival has evolved through the years from a set of dramatic readings at Acorn's old studio on Congress Street to a full series of high-profile performances by some of Maine's best-known playwrights. Each year, playwrights from across Maine submit between 50 and 75 scripts to the festival, and a committee of local theater professionals reads them and selects a small group of plays for production. These scripts are then presented in a series of public performances in the late spring. Over the years, the festival has showcased scores of Maine playwrights, many of whom have subsequently had their work produced at theater festivals all over the country.