Submissions Now Open for the Relentless Musical Award

The American Playwriting Foundation and Building for the Arts have announced that submissions for the Relentless Musical Award are now open and will close on March 1, 2022. The creators of the winning submission will receive $65,000, the largest cash prize in American theater presented to an unproduced work. There is no fee to apply.

The annual Relentless Award, created in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman, will be presented to a musical submission this year in honor of Adam Schlesinger, an Academy & Tony-nominated and Emmy & Grammy-winning songwriter who passed away from COVID-19 in 2020. Schlesinger had served as an artistic advisor during the creation of the Relentless Award in 2015.

Led by David Bar Katz, the Relentless Award Selection Committee places special emphasis on works that are fearless in their choice of subject matter, featuring passionate voices that are relentlessly truthful. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and Relentless judge Lynn Nottage said, "The Relentless Award celebrates writing that disrupts and upends our notions of what can be presented on the American stage. We are looking for brave, fearless and imaginative writers, who despite the tug of the industry at large, remain unabashedly true to their own voices."

The Relentless Award selects eight finalists from several thousand submissions using blind evaluation, keeping the writers completely anonymous throughout the process. Judges will have no knowledge of the identity, gender, or race of a work's creators. Criteria for submission casts a wide net of eligibility - essentially any unproduced new musical is eligible - but submissions by first-time composers, lyricists, and book writers of all identities are especially encouraged.

The winner of the Relentless Musical Award will be selected by a panel of judges including Rachel Bloom ("Crazy Ex-Girlfriend"), James Iha (Smashing Pumpkins), Ann Yee (Caroline, or Change), Lynn Nottage (Clyde's), Thomas Bradshaw (When They See Us), Sam Hollander ("Ordinary Joe"), and Stephin Merrit (The Magnetic Fields).

The winning musical, along with finalists and semifinalists, may also receive opportunities to have their work developed at various theatrical institutions, including a series of staged readings at Theatre Row.

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