TEN-MINUTE PLAYWRIGHT COMPETITION
Over the years, this popular competition, featured each year at the Panoply Arts Festival, has received entries received from Minnesota, New York, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Alabama, Massachusetts, California, Kentucky, Georgia, Virginia, Illinois, Washington (both state and DC), Kansas, Maryland, Montana, Colorado, Ohio, New Jersey, Texas, Florida, New Mexico, Alaska, and both Carolinas. And Canada. Oh, yes, and AUSTRALIA. And SCOTLAND. ...So remember, at each Panoply, we'll be looking for YOUR PLAY, TOO!
Ten-minute plays are a relatively new dramatic structure wherein the playwright develops a full plot with a beginning, middle, and end within a production running time of seven to ten minutes. In our “fast-food society” of short attention spans and commitment phobia, the Ten-Minute Playwright Competition is the perfect literary-theatric combo special by which one may expose and educate the general public to bite-sized portions of the arts.
The Panoply Arts Festival invites aspiring, novice, and longtime playwrights from across the United States and beyond to submit original scripts pertaining to a specific theme chosen each year. These scripts are adjudicated by a panel of judges who will produce the winning plays in a "Reader's Theatre" format.
The selected playwrights will receive a $50.00 stipend for their work and will also be invited to attend Panoply and watch as their play is read for the public. Panoply will take the responsibility of working with area schools and drama troupes to produce the Reader's Theatre during the festival weekend.
Panoply, “The South's Most All-Embracing ARTStravaganza,” is held the last full weekend of each April in downtown Huntsville, Alabama; this annual celebration of the arts attracts over 100,000 people to Big Spring International Park (with record-breaking attendances exceeding 100,000 during 2007 - 2009!).
Panoply was conceived as a fine arts festival geared toward children and their families. As such, it strives to offer the community a wide array of the arts including SIX performing stages that showcase the best in theater, music, and dance; a juried Art Marketplace with artists from across the US; many FREE make-n-take activities for children and families; the Global Village and International Performing Arts Stage; still more competitions in choreography, photography, homegrown talent, and much, much more!
Guidelines for Play Submissions:
· Registration Fee of $10 is Required
· Maximum of 6 characters
· For a General Audience base; NO “Mature Audience Only” material
· No more than 6 sound cues
· Run Time must be between 7 - 10 minutes
2010 Timeline:
· The application deadline has passed. Winners will be notified by February 14, 2010
· Production crew receives script by February 21, 2010
· Dress rehearsal on Thursday, April 22, 2010
· Plays performed at festival on Friday - Sunday, April 23, 24, and 25, 2010
2010 Theme:
Home is Where the Heart Is! (in other words, in keeping with Alabama Tourism Department's "2010: The Year of Alabama Small Towns and Downtowns," your script should pertain to the following things that make the south feel like home: food, families, sports, churches, hobbies, small towns, music, etc.!)
The competition is your opportunity to move your audience to tears, to make them think, or to simply add a little laughter to their lives!
WINNERS of our 2010 Competition include:
· A Curiosity Quilt, by Nancy Gall-Clayton of Jeffersonville, IN
· Don and Wally, by Gordon LePage of New Sharon, ME
· He Won’t Marry Me, by Dave Carley of Toronto, ONT
· Heed the Warning, by Fred Sayers of Huntsville, AL
· Make This Go Away, by Robert M. Barr of Pittsboro, NC
· Who You Got to Believe, by Charlene A. Donaghy of Torrington, CT