New Play Development

Playwright Gabriel Jason Dean and Director Lindsay Amer discuss "risky plays", queer characters and narratives, and young audiences.

Chris Garza reviews Theatre Unbound’s Silkworms (a nun play) and takes a look into the director Isabel Nelson's devising process.

Hayley Finn writes on the creative partnership between playwright Kira Obolensky and Artistic Director of Ten Thousand Things Michelle Hensley.

Holly L. Derr writes about SCRC's 2014 Pacific Playwrights Festival, and the goals of the organization's new play development initative.

"Guys, before you go: keep working hard. Be nice to everyone. Keep up the playwriting you started doing here. Handwritten thank you and/or apology notes. Find people who inspire you and make yourself useful to them. Buy gold and invest in Apple now."

Anne G. Morgan sheds insight on the history and impact of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center on the theatrical community. 

Throughout the ONSTAGE journey, we’ve been doing our best to promote each playwright and connect them with the people coming in contact with their work at every stage, be it other playwrights, partner producers, the directors, the actors, or the audience—each and every person coming in contact with these plays has been given tools to help them find out more about the playwrights and learn how to connect with these writers through our project.

Karla Jennings provides insight into the benefits of blind submissions in playwriting.

Jonathan Mandell writes about the life of prolific costume designer Carrie Robbins, and her new ambitions as adaptor and playwright.

How many playwrights have been told to self-produce? It seems like the go-to response anytime someone expresses frustration with the current system of “Development.” It sounds enticing, and the idea definitely feeds the angsty rebellion residing within… But let’s be honest: very few playwrights have access to the resources necessary to mount a full production of their work.

I think, rather, that playwrights readily turn over the fate of their work to these committees and power-players, simply because that is the way it’s been done for so long that anything else feels strange. A playwright wants to get produced, after all— and other writers traditionally aren’t the ones assigning production budgets. But this can change.

Jonathan Mandell overviews five eclectic works by Texas playwright Kirk Lynn.

Kelly Miller offers insight on how the South Coast Repertory has supported and engaged with playwrights to develop compelling theatre in Orange County. 

We cannot be preoccupied before or during a show with differences of race, class, sexuality, etc., and assume because of these differences the lives of those we see before us are foreign territory. When we do that, we rob ourselves of what might be a beautiful and transformative experience if only we give it a chance. Instead we should keep an open mind and find the human connecting points. When we do that, we’ll find that deep down, we are more alike than we are different.

Dani Snyder-Young writes about the intentional diversity she witnessed in five of the 2014 Humana Festival productions.

The Weekly Howl is a peer produced, open access discussion about theater culture and contemporary performance that happens in real-time on Twitter using the hashtag #newplay.* This week's conversation topic is "The New Play Development Process of Incubation" and will be moderated by @garliacornelia and @thecelltheatre—who like all of our moderators, authors, and content producers—self-selected to peer-produce on this commons-based platform! This hour-long Howl will take place on Thursday, April 3 on hashtag #newplay at 9am PDT (Vancouver) / 11am CDT (Austin) / 12pm EDT (New York) / 16:00 GMT / 5pm BST (London). On Thursday, get heard in the conversation by searching for #newplay in Twitter (sort by “all”) and by putting “#newplay” somewhere in your messages. Spread the word!

A dialogue between Paula Vogel and Blanka Zizka regarding their play Don Juan Come Home from Iraq. 

Alice Stanley Jr. discusses her experience at a workshop of Ariel Luckey's solo performance Amnesia, and the talkback which followed.

Dani Snyder-Young reviews the (now closed) Next Theatre Company production of Kirsten Greenidge’s Luck of the Irish in the context of Evanston, Illinois