The Playwrights Realm Opens Applications for Writing Fellowship and Scratchpad Series

Over the past eleven years, The Playwrights Realm, led by Founding Artistic Director Katherine Kovner and Producing Director Roberta Pereira, has continually produced work by brave new voices and expanded its commitment to providing holistic support to playwrights striving to make a life in the arts. The Realm is now accepting applications for their two popular open submission programs: the Writing Fellowship and Scratchpad Series. This year The Realm will shift the application period from spring to winter in order implement one simultaneous process for these two programs, letting writers apply to both with a single application. In addition to this, the process is shifting to an online submission system, to help keep things streamlined and simple. Applications for the 2018-19 open submission programs will open on Monday, February 5th, 2018, and close at 11:59pm EST on Sunday, March 4th. With these programs, The Playwrights Realm is proud to grant career-propelling opportunities to a group of promisingly talented, diverse and dedicated playwrights from across the country.

"We're excited to be implementing a new submission process this year that will let playwrights spend more time writing, and less time filling out forms," said Founding Artistic Director Katherine Kovner. "Because these programs are the main avenues through which we get to know writers and start new relationships, it's important that it be as simple as possible for writers from across the country to share their work with us."

The Writing Fellowship is at the heart of what The Playwrights Realm does: helping writers write. Four early-career playwrights receive nine months of resources, workshops and feedback designed to help them reach their professional and artistic goals. Over the course of the season, Fellows develop a single new play. Monthly group meetings provide a collaborative, energizing setting for writers to share and refine their work. Individual meetings with The Realm's artistic staff support each writer's specific artistic process. Fellows work with a director, design consultant, and actors over the course of two workshops to see their work come to life. Professional development resources are also an integral part of the program and are tailored to the individual group of Writing Fellows. Mentor opportunities, meet-and-greets, and professional workshops shed light on the often opaque business of theatre, and empower the Fellows to be active, informed participants in their own careers.

In addition to creative and professional support, Fellows receive a $3,000 stipend, an internal reading with actors, and generous use of The Realm's office space for printing, writing, meetings and more. The Fellowship culminates in a final reading of each playwright's finished play as part of INK'D, a festival of new work. All readings in INK'D are open to the public, free-of-charge, and will occur in the spring of 2019. Since the program's inception in 2009, 15 plays that were developed through The Realm's Writing Fellowship have gone on to (or are scheduled to go on to) a total of 46 full productions at major NYC and regional theaters. Past Writing Fellows include Mia Chung (You For Me For You), J.C. Lee (The Inexplicable Disappearance of Hector Villaraigosa), Bekah Brunstetter (Hey Brother), Amy Herzog (After the Revolution), Joe Tracz (In The Woods Where Wolves Are), Elizabeth Irwin (My Mañana Comes), Sarah Gancher (The Place We Built), and Mfoniso Udofia (Sojourners). Donja R. Love's play Sugar in Our Wounds was developed during his 2016-17 Writing Fellowship and will be produced by the Manhattan Theater Club in June 2018. A complete list of past Writing Fellows can be found at playwrightsrealm.org.

Scratchpad Series opens The Realm's doors to early-career playwrights from around the country, deepening their ability to do what they do best: listening to what playwrights need, and giving it to them. Whether it's a place to hear a rough draft aloud for the first time, space to fine tune a more mature work, or time to focus in on a particular aspect of a piece, The Realm aims to provide playwrights with what they need to thrive. Scratchpad is a chance for The Realm to engage with an entirely New Group of playwrights each year, erasing limitations of geography or access by identifying and inviting playwrights from across the U.S. to participate. Scratchpad participants will receive a developmental workshop of up to one week in New York City during the 2018-19 season, working with top-notch professional collaborators-director, cast, and The Realm's artistic staff. If the playwright is based outside of New York, The Realm will also facilitate the playwright's travel and housing for the workshop.

The writers selected this year for Scratchpad Series' inaugural season bring a diversity of story and perspective, as well as geography, to The Playwrights Realm. Minneapolis-based Benjamin Benne's Querencia is a magical coming-of-age story about a young boy named Milo's search for belonging as he grapples with friends, family, and his sexual identity, guided by a mysterious character named La Bruja. MJ Kaufman, a playwright living in New York, will work on an as-yet unnamed play. Their work explores gender and identity with humor and ingenuity, across a range of styles and stories. Inspired by her time working in a Montana domestic violence shelter, Baltimore resident Miranda Rose Hall's The Kind Ones is a comically macabre tale about justice, community...and pigs with a taste for human flesh.

About The Playwrights Realm

Obie Award-winning The Playwrights Realm, led by Founding Artistic Director Katherine Kovner and Producing Director Roberta Pereira, is devoted to supporting emerging playwrights throughout their playwriting careers, helping them to hone their craft, fully realize their vision and build meaningful artistic careers. To serve this mission, The Playwrights Realm produces an Off Broadway season each year at The Duke on 42nd Street, as well as providing comprehensive support to playwrights throughout their creative processes and careers with the Page One Residency, Alumni Playwrights Program, Writing Fellowship, and Scratchpad Series.

This fall, 2017-18 Page One playwright Michael Yates Crowley's The Rape of the Sabine Women, by Grace B. Matthias, completed a successful run at The Duke on 42nd Street, and Page One playwright Don Nguyen's Hello, from the Children of Planet Earth will premiere next month. Other Playwrights Realm productions include Jen Silverman's The Moors (2017); Sarah DeLappe's The Wolves, and Anna Ziegler's A Delicate Ship (2016); Mfoniso Udofia's Sojourners, and Anton Dudley's City Of (2015); Elizabeth Irwin's My Mañana Comes (2014); Lauren Yee's The Hatmaker's Wife (2013); Ethan Lipton's Red-Handed Otter (2012); Jen Silverman's Crane Story (2011); Gonzalo Rodríguez Risco's Dramatis Personae (2010); Christopher Wall's dreams of the washer king (2010); Anna Ziegler's Dov and Ali (2009); and Anton Dudley's Substitution (2008).

So far this season, the "invaluable" (The New York Times) Playwrights Realm has seen the transfer of its smash hit, The Wolves, to Lincoln Center-this after a sold-out initial run in the fall of 2016, a subsequent re-mount due to popular demand, and being named a Pulitzer Prize Finalist. Additionally, Michael Yates Crowley's The Rape of the Sabine Women, by Grace B. Matthias was praised by both The New York Times and The Village Voice in articles about artists responding to the national conversation about sexual assault. Donja Love's Sugar in Our Wounds, developed during his 2016-17 Writing Fellowship, was recently named the winner of the 2018 Laurents/Hatcher Award and will be premiered by Manhattan Theatre Club this coming June.

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