TNC Announces DREAM UP FESTIVAL 8/8-9/5/2010

From August 8 to September 5, 2010, Theater for the New City (TNC), under the direction of Crystal Field, Artistic Director, will present its first "Dream Up Festival," a theater festival that is open to submissions from artists across the country and abroad. It is curated by the theater's Literary Manager, Michael Scott-Price.

The festival will be a month long anthology of wide-ranging and original theatrical visions embracing drama, poetry, music and dance. The festival hopes to offer at least 20 shows on its lineup.

Up to now, Theater for the New City has primarily served local theater artists. The Dream Up Festival opens up the theater to the country at large and to artists from overseas. Its founders feel this is especially needed now in a time of declining donations to the arts, grants not being awarded due to market conditions, and arts funding cuts on almost every level all across the country and abroad.

Submissions will be accepted from December 8, 2009 to March 26, 2010. Forms can be downloaded from Theater for the New City's Dream Up Festival web page, www.theaterforthenewcity.net/dreamup.htm. Artists who are interested in receiving announcements and notifications related to the festival are encouraged to sign up on the website's email subscription registry.

The motto of the festival is "Dream Up: Invent, Concoct." The festival is dedicated to new works. All works must be unproduced, but a previous reading or workshop will not be a disqualification. To qualify for the festival, all works by US artists must be world premieres and works by International Artists must be at least US premieres. Translations and new adaptations of known material will be acceptable if they have no history of a full production in the past.

The festival is available to both performance groups and individuals. Plays, dance theater, solo works and interdisciplinary material will all be welcome so long as they can co-exist in repertory with other productions in the festival lineup. Technical requirements and use of production effects will need to be limited. Scenic elements are welcome but one or more of these elements will have to be used in an inventive way.

The question of the artist's vision to free or attack the material will be asked in each application. The festival does not want traditional theater which is presented in a traditional way. Theater for the New City wants to use this festival as a way to push ideas to the forefront with the hope of revealing roads less traveled or undiscovered. Presentation of a straightforward play must be imaginative in some way.

Submissions with a postmark on or before February 25, 2010 must be accompanied by a non-refundable $25 early application fee, in the form of a certifiEd Check, cashiers check, or money order in US Dollars payable to Theater for the New City. The application fee from February 26 will be $35 and applications will be accepted until March 26, 2010.

All judged applicants will receive a position notice (accepted, wait listed, or not accepted) after their submissions are read. Acceptances will be mailed on or about April 19, 2010. Artists who are accepted will be required to submit participation documents by about April 26, 2010. A non-refundable $500 participation fee will be required, in the form of a certifiEd Check, cashier's check or money order for participating productions. No personal or company checks will be accepted.

Theater for the New City maintains a unique commitment to high artistic standards and community service. In an effort to make theater accessible to all, TNC traditionally sponsors a variety of distinctive, unique events each year, including the Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, which celebrates the artistic and cultural diversity of TNC's Lower East Side community; an annual Village Halloween Ball and an annual summer Street Theater tour that presents a free, live, original musical in thirteen neighborhoods in all five boroughs.