PLAYWRITING

Congratulations to everyone who competed in the Region IV NPP Playwriting competitions. Each year, Region IV play submissions in all categories are blinded and sent to out-of-region readers who pick the outstanding plays in each category.

Please be sure to attend the Region IV Festival, February 3—6, 2010 to see readings of these plays.

Region IV 2009 Ten-minute Play Selections

• Bag Boy by Daniel Martin (University of Alabama, Birmingham)
• Atonement by Corey Resnick (Florida State University)
• Repetition and Repetition by Chris Rushing (Georgia Southern University)
• Cutting Loose by Susanne Parker (Clemson University)
• Mr. Nice Guy by Kevin Human (Clemson University)
• The Dangers of Smoking by David Bishop (Florida State University)

Hope you're all writing and getting ready to submit your plays to KCACTF. This is another thrilling year for playwrights because of all of the new opportunities for our student and faculty playwrights. I am including a Playwriting Cheat Sheet on the website so that you can better understand all of the playwriting opportunities for students and faculty. I'm also including a description of the newly created David L. Shelton full-length student play project and our short play competition, which are exclusively Region IV creations. The deadline for all submissions (except for the David Shelton) to the Regional Playwriting chair is October 30. I must have your plays, submitted electronically, by that date. We have very little turn-around time to send them to another region for blind readings and get them back by our late October deadline. The David Shelton full-length is due by October 30.

After the blind readings I will contact you to let you know if your play has been chosen for the Regional Festival. We will be choosing 6 short plays and 6 ten-minute plays to be read at the festival. Student directors who are assisted by a faculty mentor and a stage manager will direct these plays. You no longer have to bring a staged reading of your short play to the Regional Festival. We will carefully choose and train student directors and give them rehearsal space, actors, dramaturges and reading schedules during the first day of the festival. To be able to be one of the two finalists in the Regional short play competition you will need to make sure your school can bring a fully staged production back to the festival for performance in 2011. This does not mean that you can't be entered in the national John Cauble short play competition. All of the short plays submitted will be read for this competition but let me know if your school is unable to mount a production. The 6 that are read at the festival and the two chosen for production for next year are a regional competition only.

So remember - submit your plays electronically by October 30 to rpaolino@uga.edu. Please include two cover sheets (see DOWNLOADS below) - one with all of the necessary information, i.e., name, name of play, school, email address, etc., and one with just the name of the play. This is essential for the blind reading! Please go to the Kennedy Center website for the different playwriting competitions - look for the new competitions and for the script format page.

REMEMBER:
The deadline for play submission for both the Cauble and Shelton Awards is October 30, 2009. Notification of Cauble participants will be December 7; Notification for Shelton Award winner will be December 15.!

Also, please email me or call me for any further information.

Ray Paolino
University of Georgia
Fine Arts Building
Athens, GA 30602-3154
Phone: (706) 542-2085
rpaolino@uga.edu.

NPP DIRECTING

Interested in directing a new ten-minute or short play at the festival? Visit the NPP Directing page to learn how to become involved.
Click here.


FOR PARTICIPATING AND ASSOCIATE PRODUCTIONS

Regional Awards

Remember we have our new David L. Shelton Full-length Student Playwriting Project. If your students have written full-length plays PLEASE send them to me to be considered for this new award. The play chosen will have a staged reading at the '08 Festival and be brought back (even if you can't mount it) to the '09 Festival for a participating production! The David L. Shelton is for students only! You must be a current student or have graduated within the last year. The play can have had a reading or a production as a work-in-progress.

Short Play Award, the two winning short plays read at the festival are brought back the next year as fully supported participating productions.

The David L. Shelton play will be invited as a participating production the next year after mentoring and rewrites and will be seen and considered by the National Selection Team.

DOWNLOADS (Some links are coming Soon)