New Play Exchange is Now Home to 10,000 New Plays

National New Play Network the alliance of theaters dedicated to the development, production and continued life of new plays-is proud to announce that its database of new scripts, the New Play Exchange (newplayexchange.org), now includes 10,000 plays by living writers.

"The New Play Exchange's database continues to grow faster than we projected," said NNPN Executive Director Nan Barnett. "In less than two years, the NPX has become an indispensable tool for theater-makers, and the impact of its creation and capabilities has exceeded all expectations."

The New Play Exchange (NPX) is a crowd-sourced, open-access database created by and for anyone seeking to share, discover, read, and produce new work for the theater. NPX, which launched in January 2015, was developed after three years of research led by NNPN and funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the more than 100 professional theaters that comprise NNPN's membership. The database has enabled thousands of users-currently, there are more than 2,700 playwrights, 280 organizations, and 5,200 literary managers, dramaturgs, directors and artistic leaders with accounts-to access plays and musicals shared by writers from more than 40 countries.

"The fact that there's now one neutral platform on which writers from every state and country can share their work worldwide-one definitive place to go to learn about new plays and musicals-is game-changing for the field," said NPX Project Director Gwydion Suilebhan.

On the Exchange, playwrights create profiles about themselves-including their representative's contact information, a bio, photo, and artistic statement-and then upload scripts. Each play profile can include a full draft script (and a score, for musicals), a sample, or a link to a published version. Plays in the NPX also include synopses and complete development and production histories. In addition, to make them searchable, each script is amended with metadata: subject matter keywords, cast size, cast ethnicities, and length, among others.

Readers-anyone with a need to access, understand, and assess new work: dramaturgs, literary managers, producers, actors, directors, students, and audience members-create profiles and use precise filters to search for exactly the plays or writers (or cast size, subject, issues, etc,) they are looking for. They can also recommend work to others by writing brief, positive recommendations; build libraries of plays to be read; and record private notes about the scripts they are reading.

NPX memberships for playwrights and readers are available for only $10 per year. Organizational memberships-profiles for theaters or other new play affiliated groups-are $25 per year and include the ability to share opportunities with the entire database of writers.

NNPN was aided in the research and beta testing phases of the product's creation by the leadership and constituencies of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, the Playwrights Foundation (San Francisco), the Playwrights' Center (Minneapolis), and Chicago Dramatists, in addition to its own Core and Associate Members and Alumni Playwrights. Further development of the product is ongoing, with new features and upgrades being released quarterly.

This year, NNPN will organize developmental and outreach trips to cities where the pre-launch research took place, in partnership with the above organizations. Mr. Suilebhan will kick off the series in Minneapolis at the Playwrights' Center with three workshops on Friday, November 18: introductions to the tool for both playwrights (12-1:30 pm CST) and literary managers, dramaturgs, and artistic directors (10-11:30 am), as well as a check in with current members to continue crowd-sourcing NPX's evolution (3-4:30 pm).

For more information about the New Play Exchange, a product demonstration, or the upcoming Minneapolis events, please contact Project Director Gwydion Suilebhan at gwydion@nnpn.org. For more information about National New Play Network, contact Executive Director Nan Barnett at nan@nnpn.org or 202.312.5270.

ABOUT NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK
National New Play Network (NNPN) is the country's alliance of non-profit professional theaters dedicated to the development, production, and continued life of new plays. Since its founding in 1998, NNPN has supported more than 200 productions nationwide through its innovative National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere program, which provides playwright and production support for new works at its Member theaters. Additional programs - its annual National Conference, National Showcase of New Plays, and MFA Playwrights Workshop; the NNPN Annual and Smith Prize commissions; its residencies for playwrights, producers and directors; and the organization's member accessed Collaboration, Festival, and Travel banks and online information sessions - have helped cement the Network's position as a vital force in the new play landscape. NNPN also strives to pioneer, implement, and disseminate ideas and programs that revolutionize the way theaters collaborate to support new plays and playwrights. Its most recent project, the New Play Exchange, is changing the way playwrights share their work and others discover it by providing immediate access to information on more than 9,500 new plays by living writers. NNPN's 30 Core and more than 75 Associate Members - along with the more than 150 affiliated artists who are its alumni, the thousands of artists and artisans employed annually by its member theaters, and the hundreds of thousands of audience members who see its supported works each year - are creating the new American theater. nnpn.org

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