Playwrights Realm Seeks Submissions for Writing Fellowship, Scratchpad Series

The Playwrights Realm, led by Founding Artistic Director Katherine Kovner, and Producing Director Roberta Pereira, have announced that they are currently accepting submissions for the 2017/18 Writing Fellowship. Applications are due on May 21st. More information at playwrightsrealm.org/fellow-app.

The Fellowship, celebrating its eighth consecutive year, continues to support the company's intrinsic goals: to help writers write and, ultimately, to build fruitful relationships with early-career playwrights. The four selected playwrights will receive a $3,000 award, and nine months of resources, readings, and feedback designed to help them reach their artistic and professional goals.

The Fellowship supports each writer through one-on-one meetings with the Playwrights Realm staff, making each writer's Fellowship an individualized artistic process. Over the course of the season, Fellows develop a single new play, attend organized meetings with their Fellowship cohort, and have access to a multitude of professional development resources. The plays developed during the Fellowship are then showcased as part of The Playwright Realms' 'INK'D,' a festival of new plays, which features a reading of each Fellow's new work. This season's INK'D is taking place April 17th-20th and will feature new plays by Liza Birkenmeier, Clarence Coo, Patricia Ione Lloyd, and Donja R. Love.

As a company and community who value the power of language, who embrace the complexity of life and channel these creativities into their work, The Realm has established one of the biggest missions of the Fellowship: to help create the next generations of playwrights. Some former Writing Fellows have gone on to full productions at The Realm, including Mfoniso Udofia and Elizabeth Irwin.

The newest program of the Playwrights Realm, the Scratchpad Series, aims to start relationships with early-career playwrights from around the country. 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 on a particular aspect of a piece, The Realm wants to give playwrights 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 inviting early-career playwrights from across the country to participate.

Scratchpad participants will spend a week in New York City for a developmental reading of their play with top-notch professional collaborators including a director, cast, and The Realm's artistic staff. If the playwright is based outside of New York, The Realm will facilitate travel and housing for the workshop.

The Realm is seeking individuals whose storytelling aligns with the spirit of the Realm-curious, intellectual, and wildly imaginative. Writers are encouraged to explore writing styles reflective of the diverse society in which we are living, stories expanding and pushing cultural perspective, experience and the diversity of individual backgrounds.

The Scratchpad Series application will open May 17th, and the final deadline is July 16th at midnight. More information at playwrightsrealm.org/scratchpad-series.

Playwrights may apply to both the Writing Fellowship and the Scratchpad Series in the same season with the same play.

The Playwrights Realm (Katherine Kovner, Founding Artistic Director and Roberta Pereira, Producing Director) is devoted to supporting emerging playwrights along the journey of playwriting, helping them to hone their craft, fully realize their vision and build meaningful artistic careers. To serve this mission, The Playwrights Realmprovides comprehensive support to playwrights through its Page One Residency,Alumni Playwrights Program, Writing Fellows Residency, and, of course, productions. Previous productions by The Realm include Sarah DeLappe's The Wolves, Jen Silverman's The Moors, Mfoniso Udofia's Sojourners, Anna Ziegler's A Delicate Ship, Anton Dudley's City Of, Elizabeth Irwin's My Mañana Comes, Lauren Yee's The Hatmaker's Wife, Ethan Lipton's Red-Handed Otter, Jen Silverman's Crane Story, Gonzalo Rodríguez Risco's Dramatis Personae, Christopher Wall's Dreams of the Washer King, Anna Ziegler's Dov and Ali, and Anton Dudley's Substitution. Go to www.PlaywrightsRealm.org for more.