WGA Members Eligible for $10,000 Relentless Award for Ten-Minute Plays

The American Playwriting Foundation and Building for the Arts NY have announced a new Relentless Award for Ten-Minute Plays, created to support WGA members who are unable to work due to the current strike. Open to all current WGA members, the Award will grant each of the six winning authors $10,000. Their plays will be performed in a special benefit performance at Theatre Row by Relentless Theater Company actors including Wayne Brady, Billy Crudup, Vincent D’Onofrio, Gina Gershon, Walton Goggins, Natasha Lyonne, Sam Rockwell, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Liev Schreiber, and Yul Vazquez. Five finalists will also be named and awarded $1,000 each. Picket Play judges include Tanya Barfield, Eric Bogosian, Aleshea Harris, and Lynn Nottage.

The American Playwriting Foundation believes that the survival of writers is essential to our society and that writers deserve respect and support—financially and artistically. APF is committed to offering that support, and to celebrating writers’ relentless spirit and invaluable creative contributions to American life.

“Many WGA members began their careers as playwrights,” commented American Playwriting Foundation Artistic Director David Bar Katz. “The Relentless Award, the largest cash prize in theater, was created for the specific purpose of supporting playwrights so that writing for TV and film wouldn’t be their only option if they wanted to eat and pay rent. But during this time, when those avenues have been closed to them, the American Playwriting Foundation – the theater community, the first artistic home to many of these artists – is here for them and has their backs.”

Submissions will be open now through September 5, 2023. Plays should be no longer than 15 pages and should be written specifically for this award. The required topic/theme of the plays is ‘Picketing/Striking.’ For full play submission guidelines, please visit https://www.americanplaywritingfoundation.org/ten-minute-picket-plays. 

Submission dates for the Relentless Award for full-length plays will be announced this fall.

The American Playwriting Foundation, established in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman and his relentless pursuit of truth in the theater, has presented the Relentless Award annually to a playwright in recognition of a new work. In its mere eight years, the Relentless Award has become one of the most impactful awards in theater, launching some of theater’s brightest new artists who are revitalizing the American stage: Obie Award-winner and Pulitzer finalist Aleshea Harris, whose plays have been produced non-stop since her Relentless win; Clare Barron, whose winning play Dance Nation went on to become a Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize; Harrison David Rivers, whose play The Bandaged Place was produced at Roundabout Theatre Company; and Sarah DeLappe, whose play The Wolves, with over 500 productions, has become one of the most produced plays of the last decade.

Building for the Arts NY (BFA) expands access to the performing arts by providing creative space, learning opportunities, and hubs for artistic connection. BFA’s signature programs – Theatre Row, Music and the Brain, and the American Playwriting Foundation– nurture artists, audiences, and youth with a focus on accessibility and inclusion.