Join PlayGround-Chicago’s 2022-23 Writers Pool!

Are you a Chicago-based early-career or aspiring professional playwright? Have you ever wanted to see your plays performed on stage by leading local professional actors? Do you respond well to deadlines?

PlayGround is seeking applications for the inaugural PlayGround-Chicago Writers Pool. Only members of the Writers Pool are invited to submit for the Monday Night PlayGround short play staged reading series, from which each year’s Best of PlayGround are selected. PlayGround releases a prompt on a Friday morning and writers have just four-and-a-half days to write an original ten-minute play inspired by the prompt. Of the submitted scripts, 6 get chosen for a fully-staged, partly-teched, script-in-hand reading led by leading local directors and actors, on first Mondays, November-April**. Writers not chosen in any given month can participate in PlayGround Recess, with the opportunity to hear their work read aloud by professional actors and receive peer feedback in a private setting. ** The first Monday Night PlayGround will be Monday, October 31, 2022.

The PlayGround Writers Pool has featured some of the nation’s most distinguished new writers of the past two decades, including Lauren Yee, Christopher Chen, Aaron Loeb, Geetha Reddy, Vincent Terrell Durham, and Diana Burbano, among others.

POOL REQUIREMENTS

To be eligible, writers must reside within the greater Chicago metropolitan area.

Writers Pool members must commit to submitting for at least five of the six Monday Night PlayGrounds in any season. The submission of a script to Monday Night PlayGround grants PlayGround the exclusive option to stage the play as part of the Monday Night PlayGround and, should it be so selected, to present the world premiere as part of Best of PlayGround and the non-exclusive right to publish the script in the “Best of PlayGround” anthology.

All selected writers must attend a mandatory online meeting for the Writers Pool on Sunday, October 2, 2022 (time to be confirmed).

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

To apply for a place in the 2022-23 writers pool, please submit a 10-page max, double-spaced script as a Portable Document Format (.pdf) attachment. Both previously produced and unproduced scripts are eligible. The script must have the playwright’s name, address, email and phone number at the top of the first page and include a detailed cast breakdown, and all pages must be numbered. The script title must be labeled by Lastname_Firstname_Title.

Excerpts from longer works are not accepted but short plays that meet the above requirements and are derived from a longer work are accepted. BIPOC, trans/gender-non-conforming & differently-abled playwrights are encouraged to apply.

Applications must be received by 11:59pm PT on Thursday, June 30, 2022. The 2022-23 PlayGround Writers Pool will be announced on or before September 1, 2022.

The submission form can be found HERE.

For any questions not answered above, email to info@playground-ch.org.