Element: A New Plays Festival
2009
Guidelines for Submission
Playwrights who wish to submit work to the Element New Plays Festival
are asked to provide the following, via email:
1. A cover letter, with “Element Play Submission” in the
email subject line. In the body of your email, please provide us with your
name and contact information, a biography of no more than 100 words
and a paragraph of no more than 150 words about your play, its
history and its process.
2. A complete draft of your full-length play, though not a final draft. The pages
should be numbered, and the script should include a cast list with
basic information about your characters, such as age, gender, etc. The
script should also have a cover page, with the title, your name and
your contact information. Please do not put your name or contact
information any where else in the script.
3. We also ask you to submit a minimum of one line to a maximum
of one page of original, terrible dialogue – the worst you can manage.
Please send submissions to element2009ATgooglegroups.com. The
deadline for submission is July 31st, 2009. Playwrights will be
notified of their involvement by August 31st, 2009.
About last year's festival:
O’Neill Alumni, Chicago Theatre Artists Thrive In Temporary Commune
ELEMENT: A NEW PLAYS FESTIVAL, an ambitious new script development intensive, will run on a unique 24 hours a day schedule the full week of SEPTEMBER 7th - SEPTEMBER 13th, 2008. “ELEMENT” is the first post-graduate endeavor of the 2006 ALUMNI OF THE EUGENE O’NEILL THEATER CENTER’S NATIONAL THEATER INSTITUTE (NTI).
Conceived and Produced by recent NTI GRADUATES TAYLOR BIBAT and ALEXIS RANDOLPH, ELEMENT will provide resident playwrights with a full week of aggressive script development through close collaboration with established members of Chicago’s theater community. Artists working with ELEMENT enjoy a unique communal living/working environment in the newly-opened ST PAUL’S CULTURAL CENTER in the heart of the WICKER PARK neighborhood. The space brings artists together in a communal setting complete with a kitchen, rehearsal rooms or “think-tanks,” and performance space. These rare circumstances establish an increased level of intensity, focus, and intimacy throughout the week. Participants with diverse professional experience and geographic orientation will be able to make full use of their time in residence with ELEMENT.
ELEMENT unites artists from around the country with local talent in the areas of administration, acting, directing, teaching, and artist mentoring. Currently the festival expects at least fifty seasoned Chicago artists participating in various capacities, including RUSS TUTTEROW (Artistic Director of Chicago Dramatists), DAN KERR-HOBERT (Artistic Director of Sansculottes Theater), GREG KOLACK (Director: Raven, Drury Lane Oakbrook, Circle Theatre), MATT HAWKINS (Director, and member of The House Theater of Chicago), and others.
The festival kicks off with a workshop and orientation day followed by six days of rehearsals and public readings of new works by nine Alumni playwrights. The festival will open its doors of the temporary artistic commune for a few hours at 7:00pm to welcome equal collaboration with the general public. Highlights of these nightly performances include a pre-reading activity where the audience may plant seeds in order to beautify the grounds of St. Paul's, a post-reading talkback, and a wine and cheese meet and greet. The day’s events will be thoroughly documented and made available to the public via the web, an interactive blog, and a cumulative report outlining the festival’s achievements (available October 1).
Because artists will be creating in such close proximity for a week, a tremendous amount of creative talk and energy will be present in that space. The festival will do everything possible to encourage and support continued relationships that result in future full scale productions by theater companies around the country.
Element: A New Plays Festival
An ambitious script development intensive running 24 hours a day the week of September 7th-13th 2008 at the newly-opened St. Paul’s Cultural Center, 2215 W. North Ave.