Submit A Play
We believe art is better when everyone can participate - which is why you don’t need an agent or an MFA for us to read your plays. We start our search for playwrights through open submissions for the programs below, which everyone can apply to!
Applications for the 2025-26 Writing Fellowship and Scratchpad Series are now closed. Sign up for our mailing list at the bottom to get notified when they open again!
Our Native American Artist Lab currently runs on a biennial schedule – please check back next season for updates.
Banner Photo: Mfoniso Udofia's Sojourners, Page One Production 2016 (Photo credit: Chasi Annexy).
Programs You Can Apply To
Writing Fellowship
A nine-month residency for early-career playwrights that builds a professional bridge. We provide time, money, and an occasional hug. The Fellowship culminates with a festival featuring the Fellows’ work developed during the residency.
Photo: Writing Fellows Christopher Reyes and Tanya Everett at the 2020 INK'D Festival of New Plays (Credit: Daniel J. Vasquez Productions)
Scratchpad Series
This program aims to address geographic and economic limitations for early-career playwrights from around the United States. Scratchpad playwrights receive a week-long development workshop with top professional collaborators.
Photo: Cast and creative team for Benjamin Benne's q u e r e n c i a
Native American Artist Lab
As The Realm seeks to foster the careers of playwrights from all backgrounds and create a truly diverse and representative theatrical landscape, we are very aware of our lack of support for Native Communities on whose unceded land we stand. To address this issue, we’ve created The Native American Artist Lab, a program that builds on our work with playwrights from international nations to reach out specifically to artists from Domestic Sovereign Nations.
Photo: NAAL Reading of Moki Bear Eagle's IGMU kiŋ na PAHA kiŋ, 2023
Our
Aesthetic
We love playwrights who dream big, take risks, and embrace theatricality. We value imagination, bravery, and intellectual curiosity—people who dare to ask the big questions, even if they don't know the answer. We’re drawn to plays with powerful evocative language, multifaceted characters, and a strong sense of story.
Most importantly, we are not searching for the perfect play to produce, but rather the playwright whose voice inspires us. We aim to help shape the next generation of successful playwrights, so we take seriously our responsibility to encourage writers and stories from every cultural perspective, experience and background.
Application
Components
Online application - short-answer questions (see details here)
Artistic résumé.
A draft of the piece you wish to develop (PDF format), with your name and title on a cover page. If there are multiple authors, please list all names on the cover page.
General Application FAQ
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Yes, you can apply to both programs via a single joint application. However, you must submit the same script for both the Writing Fellowship and Scratchpad Series, and you cannot submit multiple applications.
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No, you can apply to Writing Fellows and Scratchpad Series but must apply with the same play.
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We accept playwriting or artistic resumes. Your playwriting resume should list the plays you have written and any readings, workshops, and productions they have received. It should also include any other relevant theater experience, education, or affiliations. An example of a basic playwright’s resume can be found here, and we would strongly suggest you follow that format. If your resume is formatted to include both your playwriting credits and other work as an artist, that is okay as well – as long as it includes your relevant playwriting work. If you would like to include other pertinent, non-theatre information, please list it at the end of your resume. Please label file with the following format: LAST NAME_FIRST NAME_RESUME
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Yes, you must be at least 18 years old to apply to any of our programs, but there is no upper age limit on creativity. As long as you consider yourself an early career playwright, adults of all ages are welcome to apply.
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You should receive an auto-response e-mail confirming that your application has been received.
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You will be able to track the status of your application through the online portal you use to apply. Because of the volume of applications we receive, it can take up to 9 months to select program participants, and we are unable to respond to individual requests about application status. We will be in touch with all applicants regarding their status prior to publicly announcing the program.
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This season we will only be able to accept submissions from people living in the United States.
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Our program for Native American Artists (Native American Artists Lab) will not be accepting applications this year (we are running the program on a two-year cycle). Whether it’s a year we are accepting applications for the Lab or not, we encourage all Native American and Indigenous playwrights to consider applying to our Writing Fellowship and Scratchpad programs.
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While you can apply to both, they are very different programs and you may find that one process would serve you and your piece better than the other. Here’s some comparison to help you understand the differences:
The Writing Fellowship:
1) Is a much more time intensive process that provides not just a reading but also a writers group and professional development activities.
2) Playwrights must live within commuting distance of Manhattan, and be able to make it to regular evening writers meetings, rehearsals, and events. Meetings generally occur twice a month plus rehearsals.
3) Scripts should be non-musicals that would benefit from a nine-month, intensive development process.
4) Playwrights may not be enrolled full-time in an undergraduate or graduate program.
The Scratchpad Series:
1) Is a much shorter rehearsal based process that is very flexible to the goals of the playwrights: work can focus on the whole script or only portions, reading can be purely internal or an industry presentation, etc.
2) Playwrights can live anywhere in the country.
3) Both Musicals and Plays are eligible. Scripts can be anything from a rough first draft to a play that is close to production-ready.
4) Playwrights can be enrolled full-time in an undergraduate or graduate program.
5) Preference is given to projects that can’t be served by the Writing Fellowship (ie playwrights who do not live in the greater NYC area, musical projects, etc.)
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No. We will read any script, regardless of your representation status.
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- Submitted plays must be full-length. (A full-length play is a single play that constitutes a full evening of theater. For example, a 90-minute intermission-less play is a full-length play.)
- Plays being submitted for Writing Fellowship consideration should not have been produced outside of an academic environment. For Scratchpad consideration, plays should not have been produced in New York City.
- All plays submitted should not be committed for production or another similar development process during the Realm's programs.
- At this time, we don’t consider solo performance projects or one-person shows for our Writing Fellowship and Scratchpad Series.
- We also don’t consider musicals for the Writing Fellowship. For Scratchpad, musicals are accepted as long as at least half of the members of the team—lyricist, book writer and/or composer–identify as early-career.
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If you would consider yourself early-career we encourage you to apply. We make our assessments about “early-career” status on a case-by-case basis but one benchmark we often look to is if a playwright has had a major New York Production.
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You should upload a complete draft of the play that you wish to develop in PDF format, with your name and the play title on a cover page. Please label the file with the following format: LAST NAME_FIRST NAME_SCRIPT_TitleNoSpaces
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You will see on Submittable page that the short synopsis of your current draft has a suggested word count of at least 100 words; the question regarding what development the script’s undergone thus far and the elements of the script you’re still exploring has a suggested word count of at least 250 words. Going over the suggested word count is acceptable, but use your discretion.
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No. Please direct any questions only to scratchpad@playwrightsrealm.org or writingfellows@playwrightsrealm.org, and for Native American Artist Lab, naal@playwrightsrealm.org.
However, feel free to mention any contact with Realm staff in your email.
Writing Fellowship FAQ
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Many of the program activities and resources available to Fellows are in New York City, so you must live within commuting distance to be eligible. Fellows meetings occur on average twice per month in the evenings, and there are other activities, play outings, rehearsals, and group events on a regular basis. We have had fellows commute from other locations along the East Coast, though we cannot offer additional funds to cover that travel. If you live beyond the Tri-state area we’ll just ask you to explain how you plan to make sure you can attend all meetings. Please note: we do not recommend moving to New York City for this fellowship!
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Yes. You are not eligible for the Writing Fellowship if you will be enrolled in a full-time undergraduate or graduate program during the 2025-2026 academic year.
Still have questions? E-mail us at: writingfellows@playwrightsrealm.org
Scratchpad FAQ
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Unfortunately, no. For the Realm, it’s as important that we get to know you as a playwright as it is that we get to know your play, and we generally only produce writers we’ve already worked with in some way. We’ve started The Scratchpad Series specifically to create more opportunities to start new relationships with more writers.
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No. As long as you can arrange to be fully present for the duration of the reading, playwrights enrolled in academic programs are eligible.
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No you do not, this series was created, in part, to eliminate geographical barriers between The Realm and writers not based in New York City.
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Readings will be part of the 2025-26 season, between September 2025 and August 2026. Specific dates will be discussed during finalist interviews. We will do our best to make schedules work for finalists, within the parameters of The Realm’s availability.
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Feel free to upload musical samples if you are submitting a musical, in MP3 or M4A format. Please label files as: LAST NAME_FIRST NAME_MUSIC_SongTitleNoSpaces
(Please refer to the General Application FAQ section for guidance on formatting your complete script and its PDF file.)
Still have questions? E-mail us at: scratchpad@playwrightsrealm.org
Native American Artist Lab FAQ
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Yes! Collaborative groups of up to four members, or groups that have a generative leader, may apply. When filling out the application as a group, please choose one person to be the point of contact.
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Absolutely! This program is open to collaborative work with multiple authors and generative artists who do not identify as playwrights.
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Yes! We want to support all types of Native American Theater practices so if you're excited to work on it with a theatre organization (us), we want you to apply. We encourage you to push boundaries, dream big and submit “unproducible plays.” Please supply a pdf that will allow us to understand the nature of the performance; this can include elements not usually found in a script, like pictures or choreography notes, etc.
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It doesn't need to be ready for production, but you should have a rough draft. If you are unsure, you can submit the piece in its current draft. You can also utilize the option to submit supplemental material so that the panelists and The Realm can learn more about your art.
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This program is open to both aspiring and emerging artists in order to support both individuals who are considering theater as a career and those who have just begun their careers-it is designed for people who have not yet had many professional productions or gotten much traction in the field. The program's resources will be tailored to the generative artist's interests and needs, in order to best support people at both stages of this journey.
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Yes, feel free to apply with the same play or a different piece for the lab.
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We are looking for Native American Artists who identify with Native American tribal Nation(s) (including Native Hawaiians and Alaska Natives). It does not matter to us if those Nations have Federal recognition, but we are focused on ones that are based in the United States, i.e. Domestic Sovereign Nations, because we want to offer support for Native Communities on whose unceded land the United States is built and where The Playwrights Realm resides. If you don’t feel “tribally affiliated” applies to you, but do consider yourself Native American, please read our question regarding that. At this time, we are not accepting applicants who reside in Canada.
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We are looking to work with Native Americans who have an active relationship with a specific tribe, several tribes, or at least have specific articulable knowledge of their Native American tribal ancestry. We hope that this program can support not just Native American individuals but also currently existing Native American tribal artistic practices. However, we also recognize that due to white supremacy defining one's Native ancestry is steeped in trauma and want to be sensitive to that, so we do not want to discourage any applicants with a legitimate Native American heritage. If you consider yourself to be a Native American storytelling artist, we would encourage you to apply and provide details about your Tribal Affiliations and relationships to Tribal communities in the application.
