44th Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival Announces Six Winning Plays

Samuel French, a Concord Theatricals company, has announced the winners of the 2019 Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival (OOB), the nation's premier short play competition.

The six winning titles were selected and announced at the conclusion of the week-long festival at the Dimson 15th Street Theater (Vineyard Theatre) on Saturday, August 24. The six plays will be published and available for licensing by Samuel French in the 44th edition of its Off Off Broadway collection:

Tidwell, Or The Plantation Play by Rodney Witherspoon II

A Small Breach In Protocol In Big Rick's Rockin' Skydive Academy by Daniel Hirsch

I LOVE YOU ST. PETERSBURG! by Bixby Elliot

Stay For Dinner by Becky McLaughlin

Bunkmates by Jeff Ronan

Cluck Deluxe by Bonnie Antosh

"This festival is about playwrights. Sharing the human story," said Casey McLain, OOB Festival Artistic Director. "What an amazing year this was-every single show was phenomenal, and it was incredibly hard to judge."

The Final 30 Playwrights competed for the six prize spots chosen from over 900 submissions worldwide. Samuel French assembled a judging panel of theatre industry professionals who helped select the winners including Masi Asare, Eleanor Burgess, Clarence Coo, Vichet Chum, Chris Giordano, Keli Goff, David L. Kimple, Margaret Ledford, Emily Morse, Salem Tsegaye, Miriam Weiner and Alexis Williams.

Originating in 1975, the OOB Festival is one of Samuel French's primary initiatives to introduce the next wave of emerging playwrights. In the 44 years of the OOB Festival, over 550 theatre companies and schools have participated. Applicants have included companies from coast to coast as well as from Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom. The Festival has served as a doorway to future success for many aspiring playwrights. These include Audrey Cefaly, whose full-length version of her 40th OOB Festival-winning play The Gulf won 2018's Lambda Literary Award in the category of LGBTQ Drama, and Martyna Majok, whose play The Cost of Living (originally produced as part of 39th OOB Festival as John, Who's Here from Cambridge) won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Other notable past participants include Korde Arrington Tuttle, Bekah Brunstetter, Gloria Calderón Kellett, Sheila Callaghan, Gracie Gardner, Jeremy O. Harris, Shirley Lauro, Theresa Rebeck, Jen Silverman and Steve Yockey.

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