Samuel French Announces Winners Of 2020 Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival

Samuel French has announced the winners of the 2020 Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival (OOB), the nation's premier short play competition. The six plays will be published and available for licensing by Samuel French in the 45th edition of its Off Off Broadway collection:

CRUSH by Krista Knight

i didn't think you'd be so unhappy by Shara Feit

Masking Our Blackness by Vincent Terrell Durham

Slow Jam by Caity-Shea Violette

The Falling Man by Gethsemane Herron-Coward

Voir Dire by Carissa Atallah

The Final 30 Playwrights competed for the six prize spots chosen from over 500 submissions worldwide. Samuel French assembled a judging panel of theatre industry professionals who helped select the winners including playwrights Will Arbery, George Brant, Larissa Fasthorse, Nambi E. Kelley, Kimber Lee, Madhuri Shekar and Karen Zacarías, as well as Nan Barnett (Executive Director of National New Play Network) and Susan Westfall (Co-Founder City Theatre in Miami).

"The Top 30 playwrights really brought their 'A' game in their short plays, and the virtual judging sessions were full of great debate and discussion around the work presented this year," said Casey McLain, OOB Festival Artistic Director. "We are more than thrilled to add these playwrights to the long-running tradition of unique stories told in the OOB Short Play series."

Originating in 1975, the OOB Festival is one of Samuel French's primary initiatives to introduce the next wave of emerging playwrights. In the 45 years of the OOB Festival, over 550 theatre companies and schools have participated. Applicants have included companies from coast to coast as well as from Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom. The Festival has served as a doorway to future success for many aspiring playwrights. These include Audrey Cefaly, whose full-length version of her 40th OOB Festival-winning play The Gulf won 2018's Lambda Literary Award in the category of LGBTQ Drama, and Martyna Majok, whose play The Cost of Living (originally produced as part of 39th OOB Festival as John, Who's Here from Cambridge) won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Other notable past participants include Korde Arrington Tuttle, Bekah Brunstetter, Gloria Calderón Kellett, Sheila Callaghan, Gracie Gardner, Jeremy O. Harris, Shirley Lauro, Theresa Rebeck, Jen Silverman and Steve Yockey.