Road Less Traveled Productions Kicks Off 5th Annual Buffalo Young Writers Contest

Road Less Traveled Productions today announced a Call for Work for its 5th Annual Buffalo Young Writers (BYW) contest. The professionally run, non-profit theatre company encourages Western New York (WNY) area students (ages 15 through 23, currently enrolled in school) to write and submit a ten-minute play. In the 2014 contest, one grand-prize winner (selected by RLTP) will receive $200 cash, a one-year paid membership to the Dramatists Guild of America, and will see their play produced at the Road Less Traveled Theater. Four runners up also will receive readings of their submissions, as well as complementary tickets to RLTP shows.

The BYW grand-prize and four runner-up winners will see their work presented by professional actors and directors at the Road Less Traveled Theater on Wednesday, May 21st, 2014. The 2014 BYW Night will begin at 7:30 PM; general admission tickets will be sold for $10.

RLTP launched its first annual BYW contest in the fall of 2009 and winning playwrights were showcased in the first annual BYW Night in May 2010. The program, which continued in 2011, 2012, and 2013, has become a "cornerstone of Road Less Traveled's mission," according to RLTP Literary Director Jon Elston. The company, which currently is celebrating its 10th Anniversary season, focuses on the development and production of world-premiere plays by WNY writers, as well as engagement and training of young theatre artists and theatregoers, through programs such as BYW and the RLTP Summer Institute, which was launched in the summer of 2013.

The work of two-time BYW Grand-Prize Winner Caitlin McAneney (2010/2012) was produced as part of RLTP's regular season opener, Buffalo Rises, in September 2013; McAneney's play, Good Neighbors, was one of eight world-premiere short plays that celebrated Buffalo and RLTP's 10th year.

BYW and BYW Night alumni Katherine Boswell and Jon Zelasko went on to participate in the Emanuel Fried New Play Workshop (RLTP's in-house, professional, playwright development program), and Zelasko and fellow BYW alumnus Stefan Brundage have both been produced at other area theatres, including the ALT, Buffalo United Artists, and Subversive Theatre Company.

"Buffalo Young Writers already has demonstrated a proven track record," Elston asserted, "as a great opportunity to inspire WNY's students of today to become WNY's working playwrights of tomorrow!" Elston reminded aspiring playwrights that there is no fee associated with submissions to BYW, "in order to allow all students between 15 and 23, currently enrolled in high school and college, to participate," though he added that only students attending schools in WNY are eligible.

Submissions will be accepted through Monday, February 3rd, 2014, at 12:01 pm EST; winners will be announced at the Mighty Taco Talkback Thursday performance of RLTP's production of An Iliad on Thursday, March 13th, 2014, at the Road Less Traveled Theater. Student admission for Mighty Taco Talkback Thursdays is only $5. More information about submissions is available at http://roadlesstraveledproductions.org/programs/buffalo-young-writers/.