Victory Gardens Now Accepting Submissions for IGNITION Festival 2014

Victory Gardens Theater Artistic Director Chay Yew announces a call for submissions of new, challenging, and innovative plays to be a part of the 2014 IGNITION Festival of New Plays, which will take place July 21-27, 2014. The fourth IGNITION festival will create a productive environment for both emerging and established playwrights to explore and develop their new work. The deadline for submission is Thursday, May 15, 2014.

INGITION's six selected plays will be presented in a festival of readings scheduled for summer 2014 and will be directed by leading artists from Chicago and around the country. Following the readings, two of the plays will be selected for intensive workshops during Victory Gardens 2014/15 season, and Victory Gardens will produce one of these final scripts in an upcoming season.

"As Victory Gardens Theater's season programming continues to reflect the diverse communities in the city of Chicago, we are excited to open up IGNITION 2014 applications to not only writers of color, but to all playwrights for the first time," comments Chay Yew. "We aim to bridge communities through challenging, bold, and innovative new plays, and are seeking new play submissions that represent the diverse voices in this city and beyond. IGNITION has consistently been an essential part of Victory Gardens' new play development programming since its inception in 2008, and IGNITION 2014 will be no exception."

IGNITION Festival of New Plays was conceived to support the theater's mission of new plays and diversity. In the spring of 2010, 120 writers of color from around the United States submitted new scripts for the first phase of IGNITION. In its inaugural outing last season, IGNITION developed, premiered and launched both Year Zero and Kristoffer Diaz' The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity onto the American theater scene; both productions have subsequently been remounted at Second Stage in New York City. Victory Gardens produced We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915 by Jackie Sibblies Drury and Appropriate By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.