Gatekeepers Collective Announces 'Learning to Love' Playwriting Fellowship With Donja R. Love

The Gatekeepers Collective (TGC) is collaborating with award-winning playwright Donja R. Love (Sugar in Our Wounds, Fireflies, one in two) to curate an intergenerational development process in which narrative theatrical works reflecting stories of self-acceptance as a rite of passage on the way to queer/same-gender love are created.

Four young, Queer African American/Black playwrights will be provided a stipend and partnered with older same-gender loving (SGL) men in dialogue about their respective journeys from varying degrees of invisibility and self-denial to self-acceptance and love. The fellows will create One-Act plays that will be presented in staged readings and moderated discussions, performed by professional actors under the direction of TGC Director, John-Martin Green in the Fall of 2021.

Eligibility:

• The TGC Playwright's Fellowship is intended to support young, emerging same gender loving (SGL) /Queer, male-identified African Descended playwrights.

• The applicant must be a NY resident in order to be eligible for the TGC Learning to Love Fellowship.

• The applicant must be between the ages of 18 and 35.

• The applicant must have up to 10 pages of work ready to submit.

• Playwrights may submit a work that is co-authored but only the submitting artist will be eligible for the fellowship.

• The work submitted should be primarily in English.

• Fellows must be available to commence a month-long ethnographic research process with a SGL elder with whom they will be partnered as of 7/6, and participate in ten two-hour (4-6pm EST) bi-weekly workshops with playwright Donja R. Love on: 8/11, 16, 18, 23, and 25, and on 9/27, 29, 10/4, 6 and 11/1.

• Fellows' One-acts will be mounted as staged readings with professional actors in mid-November at a theater TBA

Guidelines:

• Please submit 10 pages of material written for the stage that you think best represent your work as a playwright. TGC's work focuses on themes of healing, self-reclamation, and self-determination. Please bear this in mind when choosing your submission materials.

• Please make sure work sample is 10 pages.

• Please type your entry in a reasonable font and include stage directions where necessary. Please submit a .pdf of your entry so that all formatting will remain intact and no edits can be accidentally made while your submission is being reviewed.

• Submissions must be received by the deadline to be considered. The deadline is May 31, 2021 at 11:59pm EST.

• Submissions will be adjudicated by a panel of artists and peers drawn from the NYC Theatre Community, and TGC.

• The four fellows will be notified by email and announced publicly.

• If you are a playwright who would like to apply for The Gatekeepers Collective Learning to Love Playwrights Fellowship, please use this link: APPLICATION FORM

Submission:

If you are a playwright who would like to submit their work for The Gatekeepers Collective Learning to Love Playwrights Fellowship, please submit using this link: https://forms.gle/vQHMpDQYVrzaPsju9

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