Submissions Open for the 2nd Annual Susan Glaspell Playwriting Festival
As a theatre based in her hometown of Davenport, Iowa, the QC Theatre Workshop believes in the importance of sharing and sustaining Susan Glaspell’s historic legacy. To this end, the Workshop presents the 2nd Annual Susan Glaspell Playwriting Festival, which presents original works by local and national playwrights. The Susan Glaspell Playwriting Award is given annually to the winner of the national category, and is accompanied by a monetary prize. Additional awards and monetary prizes are given to the winner of the local adult and youth categories.
Susan Glaspell was born in Davenport, Iowa in 1876. She was a journalist, author, actor and Pulitzer Prize winning playwright. She founded the Provincetown Players, one of the first great American theatres, which launched the careers of such luminaries as Eugene O’Neil, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Theodore Dreiser. In her works, Glaspell often challenged gender roles and featured strong, well-written female characters that drove the action of the play – a rarity in her own time as much as it is now. Due to the immense contributions she made to the American theatre tradition during her lifetime, she has often been called “The First Lady of American Drama.”
The QC Theatre Workshop is seeking submissions of original plays that feature female lead characters, which focus on gender issues, social justice, and/or current events. The plays will be scored by a panel of judges, and the finalists will be performed at the Susan Glaspell Playwriting Festival, held at the QC Theatre Workshop February 2-4, 2018.
Three categories of submissions are available: Local Adult, Local Student, and National.
Local Student Category:
Award for winning submission: $100
No submission fee
-Open to students residing in the Quad City area who are (or will be) under 18 years of age on November 6, 2017.
-Scenes or monologues between approximately 2 and 10 minutes in length
Local Adult Category:
Award for winning submission: $200
No submission fee
-Open to playwrights residing in the Quad City area who are (or will be) 18 years of age or older on November 6, 2017.
-Plays may be one-acts or full-length plays, but should be more than roughly 30 minutes in length.
National Category: The Susan Glaspell Short Play Award
Award for winning submission: $500
Submission fee: $15
-Open to any playwrights residing in the United States
-Plays up to 20 pages in length.
Deadline for all categories: November 6, 2017
The winning submissions in each category will be performed February 2-4 at the Susan Glaspell Playwriting Festival. The winning playwrights will be invited to participate in the rehearsal process, and will be honored at the public performances.
For full details and submission requirements, please visit www.QCTheatreWorkshop.org.
