The Playwrights Realm Announces Revamped Community Programming

As The Playwrights Realm's 15th anniversary Restart Season continues, its community programming, which last season offered 40 free workshops and classes to over 1,200 attendees, will continue to play a key role in its mission to support playwrights and the theater community at large, with the primary goal of offering visible paths toward improving all forms of access within the industry.

After a deep dive on the learnings of that first effort, which identified what worked and what most aligned with the theater's values, this season's programming will run on separate, yet sometimes overlapping, tracks for Aspiring Playwrights, Theater Lovers, and Changemakers-this last one in partnership with Howlround.

Changemakers events, which seek to highlight new and innovative approaches to building access and equity (surrounding programs like The Realm's Radical Parent-Inclusion Project and International Theatermakers Award), will stream live both on Zoom (via The Realm's site) and on Howlround, the indispensable free and open platform for theatermakers worldwide. Of the partnership, Howlround Cultural Strategist Vijay Mathew says: "The Playwrights Realm's commitment to quantifiable change within our industry speaks directly and powerfully to Howlround's audience, which is equally invested in upending an unsustainable status quo."

Aspiring Playwrights events feature classes and workshops that cover the basics of getting started with playwriting and explaining the theater industry for those who have not yet received institutional support - the same audience that is served by the ScriptShare program, which was launched last season and already connected over 200 writers with industry professionals for one-hour conversations about one of their scripts, simultaneously creating work opportunities for theater workers whose livelihoods have been threatened by the pandemic.

Theater Lovers events include panels and interviews providing glimpses into the business of making theater and spotlighting artists and administrators shaping the field. The Realm's community programming will continue to run via these three tracks throughout the season and into the future.

September Realm community programming offerings include The Pack is Back: The Wolves 5 Years Later (Theater Lovers; Tuesday, September 14 at 4pm ET), convening cast members from Sarah DeLappe's Pulitzer Prize finalist The Wolves, which premiered at The Playwrights Realm in 2016 and has gone on to over 400+ productions worldwide; What Does Anti-Racist Producing Look Like?, an intensive panel exploration of a question at the core of this transformative moment within the industry (Changemakers; Thursday, September 23 at 4pm ET); and The Art of Receiving Script Feedback (Aspiring Playwrights; Thursday, September 30 at 4pm ET), aimed at empowering aspiring playwrights navigating a potentially vulnerable process. The first panel, surrounding The Wolves, follows Lincoln Center Theater's free stream of the Lila Neugebauer-directed production (captured in 2017 at LCT's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, after The Realm's presentation of the same production in 2016 at The Duke on 42nd Street), which ran until August 15th.

Previous Realm programming, including community events, are available to stream on The Realm's YouTube page.