Call for Playwrights and Submissions!

Dear San Juan County Playwrights:

San Juan Community Theatre is pleased to announce the call for participation for the 2011 Island Playwrights Festival taking place January 23 to February 6, 2011, in the Gubelman Theatre.

THE IDEA

This coming festival will be based on the idea of Site Specific Theatre. We are therefore seeking ten-minute plays written for two distinct and island-related settings.

THE SETTINGS

Playwrights will be asked to write a 10-minute play set in one of two locations:

1. A room in The Orca Inn (http://orcainnwa.com/)
2. On the ferry

A room in The Orca Inn-

Write a ten-minute play that is entirely set in a room in the Orca Inn. The privacy of a motel room allows for a plethora of scenarios- both comedic and dramatic.

On the ferry-

The set for the “ferry” plays will be two ferry benches back-to-back. Write a play that is set on the ferry (either coming or going) that takes place on these back-to-back benches. Are your characters strangers? Islanders? Tourists? Again, the options are limitless.

THE PROCESS

Like last year, this year will involve a collaborative process. Instead of the story circle, we will be doing two community workshops.

How it will work:

Playwrights will be asked to write a ten-minute play set in either the inn or the ferry PRIOR to the workshop. Playwrights will bring their ten-minute plays to a workshop reading where they will have the opportunity to hear their play read aloud by actors. The readings will all be cold. Following the reading there will be a feedback session facilitated by Merritt in a constructive manner.

In attendance will be actors, playwrights and directors. This workshop reading is an opportunity to hear your play aloud and receive guided (or a term that speaks to “rules” for) feedback from those in attendance. It will give the writers an opportunity to revise the play prior to officially submitting it for consideration for the festival. It is intended to be fun and a way to spark creativity. It’s possible that after hearing your play as well as the others, another idea will spark for you.

We will do this workshop process two times. Each workshop will be three hours in length. The playwrights will have the opportunity to bring in either the same play now revised or another play to read aloud.

After the two workshop sessions, playwrights will be asked to officially submit their scripts to SJCT’s executive director Merritt Olsen who will select the plays and pair them with directors.

WORKSHOP DATES

Two dates TBD in September 2010

SUBMISSION DEADLINE

October 15, 2010

AUDITIONS

Auditions will be held the first week in November 2010.

QUESTIONS?

Is there a fee for the workshops? No. The workshops are free and open to anyone interested in participating.

Are the workshops mandatory? No. However, they are strongly encouraged. Having the opportunity to have your play read aloud (  ) prior to submission will only give you an edge.

Do we have to set our plays in either a room at The Orca Inn or the ferry? Yes. That’s the idea.

How many pages is a ten-minute play? 10 pages. Give or take one or two. If you’re writing a monologue play, it will be fewer pages. Best way to figure that out is to read it out loud and time it. But roughly count on one script page equaling one minute.

What if we’ve never written a play before? Now’s the time! We welcome new playwrights!

Any additional questions can be directed to the festival coordinator:

Stephanie Walker

stephawalker@gmail.com

Please put “Island Playwrights Festival” in the subject line.