Ringwald Call For Submissions For 2020 Gay4Detroit Festival

The Ringwald Theatre is sounding a call for new, original one-act plays to be performed at their annual Gay4Detroit Festival (previously the GPS Festival) in September 2020. The Detroit-area's only LGBTQ+ short play festival is striving to provide early-career writers the opportunity to see their work produced, giving them what is oft-needed exposure.

The plays submitted should have a performance time of 30 minutes or less and deal directly with issues or characters that are identified as LGBTQ+, or contain a queer sensibility. In addition, this year the scripts must exclusively be one- or two-person shows that deal specifically with the quarantine and/or the pandemic.

Artistic director Joe Bailey added, "We've all been through an extraordinary set of circumstances this year and we're interested in seeing how this new way of living has affected the writers out there and how they craft those experiences into LGBTQ+ scripts. Additionally, by stipulating only one- or two-person scripts, it will allow us to potentially produce them more effectively either in person or virtually, when that time comes."

From those performed, an audience poll will be conducted to select one winning script, actor, actress, and director.

The 2019 Festival, the first for the re-branded Gay4Detroit Festival, departed from the usual format of 10-minute plays and featured an evening of drag, a queer comedy night benefitting The Ruth Ellis Center, a reading of Tracy L. Spada's play Game, Set, Match!, and finally, a queer cabaret.

All submissions must be submitted electronically to: submissions@theringwald.com

• The submitted script must be the script proposed for presentation, with no major alterations necessary.

• Please provide an approximate running time and a one sentence synopsis in the body of the email.

• Only one entry per playwright will be accepted.

• Neither fax nor paper submissions will be accepted.

• Submission materials will not be returned.

• Previously submitted scripts will not be eligible.

• The deadline for submissions is July 31, 2020.

• The final line-up will be announced August 17, 2020.

The Ringwald opened their doors on May 11, 2007 with Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy. Quickly, The Ringwald became a mainstay of Detroit's theatre community. Past highlights include: Head Over Heels, Clue, Company, Merrily We Roll Along,The Rocky Horror Show, Heathers The Musical, The Legend of Georgia McBride, Angels in America, Into the Woods, A Streetcar Named Desire, August: Osage County, Mercury Fur, The Bad Seed, The Book of Liz, and Evil Dead: The Musical.

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