August 2026
50 Opportunities · Residencies · Fellowships · Grants · Prizes · Competitions · Emergency Funds · Jobs
Deadlines run August 1 through mid-October 2026. A few useful outliers run to October 31 and are flagged as such.
AUGUST 2026 DEADLINES
South Street Players — 16th Annual Tri-State Theatre Festival
Deadline: August 2, 2026, 11:59 PM
Website: https://southstreetplayers.org · No fee · No royalty
South Street Players in Spring Lake, New Jersey is accepting original short plays for a festival that draws more than 300 scripts a year. Plays run 15 pages maximum, 10 minutes preferred, with no more than four characters and standard playscript format. The company is family-oriented, so no nudity and no excessive profanity. Playwrights may submit more than one script as long as name and email appear on each title page. Performances run November 6 through 8, 2026.
The catch worth knowing up front: eligibility is restricted to playwrights currently living in New Jersey, New York, or Pennsylvania, and no royalties or payment are provided to selected writers. This is a production credit and an audience, not a paycheck. For a tri-state writer with a tight ten-minute piece already in the drawer, the submission costs nothing but the email. Send to southstreetoneacts@gmail.com.
Ohio Valley Theater Group — November Festival & Playwright Development Series
Deadline: August 5, 2026
Website: facebook.com/ohiovalleytheater · No fee
OVTG is looking for original theatrical work at a range of developmental stages for its November festival: monologues, scenes, ten-minute plays, one-acts, and excerpts from larger works. The unusually wide net is the point. Most festival calls want a finished ten-minute play; this one will read an excerpt from the middle of a full-length you are still figuring out.
Selected playwrights may be invited into the OVTG Playwright Development Series, which can include workshops, table reads, facilitated feedback, revision support, and festival performance. Apply through the Google Form linked from the Facebook page. Questions go to kat.fowler.arts@gmail.com.
Metamorphosis — Trans & Queer Play Festival
Deadline: August 6, 2026
Website: instagram.com/metamorphosis.playfest
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScFg056WmuJhJTvrlNBAufW16AW7BhkDJxJYo9kwS1Am5TI_g/viewform · No fee
An independently produced trans and queer play festival built to put trans and queer stories on a professional regional stage. The festival runs the weekend of November 20 through 22 on Mill Mountain Theatre's Waldron Stage in Roanoke, Virginia. Producer Eli Riederich is seeking unpublished, unproduced ten-minute plays and one-acts up to 75 pages.
Mill Mountain is a well-established regional house, which makes the venue meaningfully better than the norm for a first-cycle independent festival. Submit through the Google Form linked on the Instagram account; questions to eli.riederich@gmail.com.
rEvolver Festival 2027 — Upintheair Theatre
Deadline: August 7, 2026
Website: upintheairtheatre.com · Contemporary performance festival · Canada
rEvolver is an incubator for new work built around formal risk: script-based theatre, devised performance, site-specific work, dance, installation, and hybrid forms all sit inside the frame. The festival explicitly looks for adventurous, high-energy projects from emerging and early/mid-career artists or companies at a turning point.
For playwrights who do not fit tidy “send us a finished script” calls — especially those working across text, body, space, and audience encounter — this belongs on the list. The fit is strongest if the work is already performable enough to meet a festival context but still alive enough to benefit from production pressure.
East Carolina University — Uncharted Series
Deadline: August 10, 2026, 12:59 PM
Website: https://theatredance.ecu.edu/playsubmissions · $100 royalty · Travel support · No fee
The ECU School of Theatre & Dance wants full-length plays with real roles for college-age actors, and it is specific about what that means: at least five characters, with no more than one of them outside the 15 to 25 age range. They are not looking for plays whose characters could be any age. They want work in which late adolescence and early adulthood is the actual subject. Plays must be unpublished and unproduced before a paying audience; prior readings and workshop productions are fine.
Selected plays receive a staged reading in the ECU/Loessin Playhouse 2026-27 season, with possible full production in a future season. Playwrights get a $100 royalty plus travel support to attend rehearsals and the reading in person. Submit via the Qualtrics form linked from the page above. Questions to Artistic Director Kitt Lavoie at lavoiec25@ecu.edu.
New Dramatists — Seven-Year Residency
Deadline: August 10, 2026, 11:59 PM EDT, or until 700 submissions are received
Website: newdramatists.org/admissions · Seven-year residency · No fee
This is the rare one that does not need hype. New Dramatists is accepting applications for its seven-year residency, with the window running July 27 through August 10 or until the cap of 700 submissions is reached. This cycle, the organization says it will recommend that the admissions panel select no more than five incoming writers, which makes the opportunity brutally competitive and still absolutely worth flagging.
Eligibility is broad but serious: applicants must be U.S. citizens or live in the United States with the legal right to work here, and must be able to submit two full-length plays plus a biography or résumé. New Dramatists cannot sponsor visas, and residents must be able to satisfy I-9 verification during the residency. For playwrights at the point where they have two strong full-lengths and need long-term artistic infrastructure rather than one more reading, this is the door.
The Garden State New Play Festival — Jersey City Theatre Center / New Jersey Play Lab
Deadline: August 15, 2026
Website: https://njplaylab.org/the-garden-state-new-play-festival-bridging-art-and-community/ Garden State New Play Festival · New play development festival
The Garden State New Play Festival is accepting submissions through August 15. The program is a partnership between Jersey City Theatre Center and The New Jersey Play Lab, built around rigorous dramaturgical process, professional development, and community engagement. The stated mission is not simply to showcase plays, but to develop work with enough clarity of intention and story to spark public conversation.
The festival’s real value is the long-term investment model: participating playwrights receive professional resources regardless of career level, and the process emphasizes both dramaturgy and community-facing impact. This is a strong fit for plays engaging social, political, civic, or communal questions — work that wants an audience conversation as part of its development rather than as a polite afterthought.
Troy Foundry Theatre — Half-Baked Festival of Emerging Work: "Becoming"
Deadline: August 17, 2026, 5 PM
Website: https://www.troyfoundrytheatre.com · No fee
Now in its fourth year, Half-Baked exists specifically for work that is unfinished, and it is refreshingly honest about that. Troy Foundry Theatre wants projects still in development: plays, devised works, lecture-performances, research-based investigations, experimental and interdisciplinary short-form work. Projects may not have received a full professional production. If your piece is strange, ambitious, unsettling, genre-defying, or simply not done, that is the brief.
This year's curatorial appetite is explicit and worth taking seriously: horror in all its registers, body horror, folk and gothic horror, cosmic terror, psychological thriller, dystopia, speculative fiction, hauntings, transformation, sex and death, apocalypse, grief, obsession, the grotesque. The reference list they published runs from Angela Carter and Sarah Kane to Jackie Sibblies Drury, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Jordan Peele, and Carmen Maria Machado. Submit everything in a single PDF to tftsubmissions@gmail.com: contact information, artist statement, project description with themes and current stage of development, working title, synopsis, runtime, performer count, creative team needs, technical requirements beyond basic festival lighting and sound, development history, and any script excerpts or media you have.
The Playground Experiment — 8th Annual Faces of America Monologue Festival
Deadline: August 17, 2026
Website: https://www.theplaygroundexperiment.com/foa-submissions · Honorarium · Anthology publication · No fee
Founded in 2019 in response to the inequality of opportunity available to marginalized writers, Faces of America asks for two-minute monologues that reflect the range of what it is to live, work, and play in this country. Historical or futuristic, cultural or political, comedic or tragic, spoken or signed. BIPOC, AAPI, Latine, and LGBTQIA+ writers are strongly encouraged. Two submissions per writer.
Two rules disqualify people every year, so read them twice. The monologue must run under two minutes, and the word "REACTION" must appear somewhere in the text. Miss either and you are out. Selection is by a committee of past festival alumni reading anonymously across multiple rounds down to a final 25. Selected writers receive a small honorarium, a professional actor performing the piece at the November 21, 2026 festival at the Marjorie S. Deane Theater in New York, a festival ticket, and publication in the festival anthology with copyright retained. All submitters hear back by early October.
Majestic Theater — Commission: A New Play About Shays' Rebellion
Deadline: August 20, 2026
Website: https://www.majestictheater.com · Paid NEA-funded commission · No fee
The Majestic Theater in West Springfield, Massachusetts is commissioning an original full-length play about Shays' Rebellion, the 1786-87 uprising of farmers and veterans in western Massachusetts that helped push the country toward the Constitutional Convention. The commission is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and developed in conjunction with the national America 250 initiative. Commission fee and project details are discussed with finalists rather than published, which is worth knowing going in.
The selected playwright spends roughly a year researching, writing, and developing the script in collaboration with Producing Artistic Director Sue Dziura and dramaturg Dan Bullens, with weekly meetings in person or on Zoom, access to local historians and community members, and staged readings with professional actors along the way. Eligibility requires at least one full-length play fully produced. Submit as a single PDF to sue@majestictheater.com with the subject line "Shays' Rebellion Playwright Submission – Your Name": cover letter, one to two page proposal outlining your artistic vision, résumé or CV, one previously produced full-length sample, production history, and two professional references.
MOXIE Theatre — 2027 Lamoise New Works Festival
Deadline: August 25, 2026
Website: https://airtable.com/appc7zM1IQaKNMf4g/pagOnJLnwaDx0veHO/form
· No fee · No self-production
MOXIE in San Diego is programming seven slots: four ten-minute plays, two full-length plays that receive a workshop and a short development process with actors and creative teams, and one full-length performed as-is in a staged reading. All playwrights of full-length work are provided travel and housing for the festival weekend, though not for the workshop process. Production happens in-house with MOXIE and there are no participation fees for selections.
Work must be by women+ playwrights and must be unpublished, unproduced, and available for production. One submission per playwright. The casting ceiling is the constraint to plan around: selections are limited to six actors total, five covering principals and one covering stage directions and minor cameos. Larger character lists remain eligible if the material can be reasonably performed through doubling. Every submitter gets an emailed response. Semifinalists are notified by September 2026, final selections in November 2026.
Storyknife Writers Retreat — 2027 Residencies for Women Writers
Deadline: August 31, 2026, midnight AKDT
Website: storyknife.org/how-to-apply · Two- and four-week residencies · $45 application fee
Storyknife in Homer, Alaska offers women writers two- and four-week residencies with a private cabin, meals, and the kind of protected time that is difficult to buy at any price. Playwrights and screenwriters are explicitly in the lane: the work-sample instructions name stage plays and screenplays as eligible prose samples, capped at ten pages and read anonymously.
There is a $45 application fee. In 2027, Storyknife says multiple opportunities for travel-cost stipends will be available, and applicants can indicate that need inside the application. For women playwrights with a draft that needs solitude rather than a table read, this is a serious residency with a clear literary mission and a real track record.
American Blues Theater — 2027 Blue Ink Award for Playwriting
Deadline: August 31, 2026, 11:59 PM CT (opens August 1)
Website: americanbluestheater.com/new-play-development · $3,000 winner · Cash to finalists and semi-finalists · No fee
Blue Ink is one of the best-run no-fee competitions in the country and one of the few where the money reaches well past first place. The winning playwright receives $3,000; cash prizes also go to finalists and semi-finalists, with more than $10,000 distributed in a recent cycle. Winners get a developmental staged reading as part of the Blue Ink Playwriting Festival in Chicago. Submissions are accepted worldwide for original, unpublished full-length plays written predominantly in English. Adaptations are accepted with proof of rights unless the source is in the public domain.
Since its founding in 2010 the award has named 14 winners, 148 finalists, and 233 semi-finalists, and the alumni list is a fair index of where the American theatre has been heading: Kristoffer Diaz, Nathan Alan Davis, Idris Goodwin, Benjamin Benne, Inda Craig-Galván, Yussef El Guindi, Elaine Romero, Jamie Pachino, Alyssa Haddad-Chin, and 2026 winner Nia Akilah Robinson. Winning scripts have gone on to premiere productions in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and San Diego. One manuscript per playwright per year. Submit digitally through the American Blues site; questions to info@AmericanBluesTheater.com.
Constellation Stage & Screen — Woodward/Newman Award 2027-28
Deadline: August 31, 2026, midnight
Website: https://seeconstellation.org/get-involved/submit-play/ · $3,000 · Full production · Housing & transportation · No fee
Established with support from Joanne Woodward, Newman's Own Foundation, and the Newman family, this award gives an unpublished new play a $3,000 cash prize and a full production on Constellation's Mainstage season in Bloomington, Indiana, with housing and transportation provided. The $3,000 is in lieu of royalties for the production, which is worth understanding before you plan around it.
The structure changed significantly and in the writer's favor. Submission fees are gone, the contest format is gone, and the finalist model has been retired in favor of keeping all plays under active consideration for two years. Submissions are read on an ongoing basis and considered not only for the Woodward/Newman slot but for all seven production slots in the season. Plays submitted by August 31, 2026 are considered for the 2027-28 season; later submissions roll to 2028-29. Full-lengths should run 75 to 135 minutes; TYA shows over 40 minutes. Two submissions per playwright per year. The recipient is announced by May 15, 2027. Questions to literary@seeconstellation.org.
Seven Devils Playwrights Conference — 2027 Season
Deadline: August 31, 2026
Website: https://www.sevendevils.org/ · Fee applies
Twenty-six years running, held each June in McCall, Idaho, in partnership with the Alpine Playhouse. Playwrights, actors, directors, and theatre artists gather for two weeks of rehearsals, workshops, and free public staged readings. The 2026 cohort was chosen from a record 966 submissions, which is competitive but a fraction of what the O'Neill fields. Alumni include Samuel D. Hunter, whose The Whale came through the 2012 conference, Eric Coble, and Jennifer Blackmer.
Seven Devils wants full-length plays that stand alone as an evening, in complete draft rather than treatment, that have never had a professional AEA production, and that you actively want to advance in a developmental environment. They are direct that they do not want a play you consider finished or that you "just want to hear read out loud." Submissions go through the id Theater Submittable portal.
⚠ VERIFY: The 2027 conference window had not been posted as of this writing. The 2026 cycle ran August 1-31. Confirm dates on sevendevils.org or the id Theater Submittable page before the month closes.
The Ten-Minute Musicals Project — 2026 Annual Competition
Deadline: August 31, 2026 (postmark)
Website: tenminutemusicals.org/Annual_Competition · $250 royalty advance per selected piece · Licensing royalties · No fee
Complete original stage musicals running seven to twenty minutes, any style and any format, maximum cast of ten. Previously produced work is acceptable, as are excerpts from full-length shows if they stand on their own. Original music only, so no parody songs. Selected pieces receive a $250 royalty advance plus an equal share of licensing royalties when produced. Since inception the project has received more than eighteen hundred submissions from seventeen countries, and individual segments have been workshopped or produced in New York, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Boston, Dallas, and Philadelphia.
Read this part carefully, because it disqualifies almost everyone who skims: there are no electronic submissions. Hard copies only. Send a printed paper script with your postal address on it, a CD or DVD of the piece or the musical material (not a flash drive), and a stamped self-addressed envelope if you want the work back. Postmark by August 31 to The Ten-Minute Musicals Project, Michael Koppy, Producer, P.O. Box 461194, West Hollywood, CA 90046. Responses are mailed by November 30.
Somerset Community College — Short Plays with Fairytale & Medieval Fantasy Elements
Deadline: August 31, 2026
Website: SCC Theatre (Facebook) · No fee
A short and specific call: plays of ten pages maximum, any genre or setting, that incorporate fairytale or medieval fantasy elements. Email to scctheatre@kctcs.edu. Low stakes, low effort, and a genuinely open brief for anyone with a short piece that has a witch, a wood, or a quest somewhere in it.
The 2026 Short Play Showcase
Deadline: August 31, 2026
Website: instagram.com/shortplayshowcase · No fee · NYC-area writers
Plays of twelve minutes or less, two characters maximum, on the themes of unrequited love, roommates, or addiction. Selected plays are performed in early December at The Attic, with a winning production chosen by audience vote. Open to New York City-area playwrights. Email shortplayshowcase@gmail.com.
Mini Plays Review — September 2026 Issue: "Echoes of the Digital Age"
Deadline: August 31, 2026
Website: Mini Plays Magazine — submissions · No fee · PDF and paperback publication
A themed anthology issue on how connection, conflict, identity, and memory are being rewritten in a hyper-connected and deeply isolated world. Fifteen published subthemes give you an unusually concrete set of prompts: phantom vibrations, the glitch in the routine, digital legacy, deepfakes and stolen identity, inherited digital property disputes, algorithmic life decisions, the ecosystem of online anonymity, doomscrolling at midnight, and the moment a livestream stops recording.
Two pages maximum per mini play, soliloquy, or monologue, standard playwriting format, up to five submissions per writer, original and unproduced in print. Simultaneous submissions welcome with immediate notification if accepted elsewhere. The anthology is published free as a PDF on the magazine site and in paperback. No publication, reading, processing, or publishing fee. Email your script as an attachment to miniplaysmag@gmail.com with the subject line Submission: [Play Title] - [Your Name], plus a 50-word bio and contact details in the body.
SEPTEMBER 2026 DEADLINES
Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts — Artist Residency
Deadline: September 1, 2026
Website: khncenterforthearts.org · Housing · Private studio · Weekly stipend
KHN awards up to seventy juried residencies a year to writers, visual artists, composers, and interdisciplinary artists, with stays running two to eight weeks in Nebraska City. Residents receive housing, private studio space, and a weekly stipend while working alongside artists in other disciplines. The center is known for its emphasis on process over product, which makes it a good fit for a playwright in the messy middle of a draft rather than a polish. Deadlines are fixed at March 1 and September 1 annually; September 1 applicants are notified by November 1.
Two access notes worth acting on. KHN reserves a number of transitional residencies specifically for artists within two years of graduation, and reserves a number of residencies each year for Nebraska artists, which they define generously as anyone who currently lives and works in the state including tribal lands, grew up there, or holds a Nebraska diploma. The application process is identical for everyone; these applicants simply receive additional consideration. Download the work-sample guidelines for your discipline before you start the online application.
Wagner College — 2027 Stanley Drama Award
Deadline: September 1, 2026
Website: https://wagner.edu/performing-arts/stanley-drama/ · $2,000 first prize · $32 reading fee
Established in 1957 by Staten Island philanthropist Alma Guyon Timolat Stanley and endowed through the Stanley-Timolat Foundation, this is one of the oldest continuously running playwriting prizes in the country, and the winners list earns the reputation: Terrence McNally's This Side of the Door, Lonne Elder III's Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, and Jonathan Larson's Rent. Judges have included Edward Albee, Paul Zindel, Geraldine Page, Kim Stanley, and David Susskind.
First prize is $2,000 for an original full-length play, musical, or thematically related one-act sequence that has not been professionally produced or received trade book publication. One submission per playwright. Plays previously entered may not be resubmitted, and former winners are ineligible. There is a $32 reading fee, payable online; once paid, email stanleydramaaward@wagner.edu with a PDF of the completed application form, the manuscript, and payment confirmation. Musicals should include digital links to the music. Winner and finalists are announced in spring 2027.
Swan Dive Theater Collective — Third Annual Short Play Festival
Deadline: September 1, 2026 (capped at first 100 entries)
Website: instagram.com/swandivetheatercollective · Dinner stipend · No fee
A Montclair, New Jersey collective dedicated to advancing the stories of women and other marginalized gender identities. Past festivals have sold out, running two performances in the event space of a lively Montclair tavern with food and drinks. The 2027 festival is on March 7. Selected playwrights receive a dinner stipend and work collaboratively with the director and cast through rehearsal.
Eligibility is specific: playwrights must identify as women, non-binary, or trans and reside in New Jersey or the New York City metropolitan area. Plays run ten minutes or less with two to four actors, Samuel French standard format, cover sheet with title, name, contact, and pronouns, minimal technical demands. Previously produced or published plays are welcome. One submission per playwright, PDF only, to swandivesubmissions@gmail.com with the subject line "Short Play Submission 2026–2027." Submissions cap at the first 100 received, so do not wait for the deadline. Plays written with AI assistance are not considered.
Shakespeare's Globe — Climate Playwriting Prize 2026 [UK AND UK-BASED WRITERS ONLY]
Deadline: September 1, 2026
Website: shakespearesglobe.com — Climate Playwriting Prize · £15,000 · Dramaturgical support · Globe option · No fee
Listing this one with a warning label up front, because it has been circulating in American roundups as an international prize and it is not. Submissions must be from UK and UK-based playwrights. If you are a US-based writer without UK residency, you are ineligible, and I would rather you know that here than after you have spent a week on the application. For the writers who do qualify, or the ones on your list who have relocated, it is the richest playwriting prize open anywhere this season.
The winner receives £15,000, dramaturgical support developing the play to rehearsal draft with specialists at the Globe, Climate Spring, and Fern Culture, industry exposure, and an exclusive eighteen-month Globe option with a stated aspiration to produce. Plays must be full length at 70 minutes or longer, in English, without a previous production (fringe runs under eight performances and public rehearsed readings still qualify), and not straight adaptations. Musicals and work written specifically for children are ineligible. Early drafts are explicitly welcome; judging is on the promise of the idea and its early execution. The prize is aimed at writers with some professional script experience, including fringe production, commission, talent development schemes, or R&D and scratch performance. Judges include Michelle Terry, Lucy Kirkwood, Nancy Medina, Lenny Henry, and Amir Nizar Zuabi. Submit the play as a PDF, a CV, a synopsis of up to 300 words, and up to 300 words on your approach to the subject. Winner announced at the Globe in winter 2026.
Bloedel Reserve — Creative Residency
Deadline: September 1, 2026
Website: bloedelreserve.org/creative-residency · Three-week residency · $1,000 stipend
Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island, Washington accepts applications between July 15 and September 1 for the following year’s Creative Residencies. The disciplinary list is unusually open — playwriting, screenwriting, theatre, performance art, literature, poetry, and storytelling all appear — but the real selection hook is connection to nature through inspiration, materials, research focus, or inquiry.
Residents receive private housing with a private kitchen, no meals, and a $1,000 artist stipend. The program includes some public programming expectation, so this is best for a playwright whose project can speak meaningfully to place, ecology, landscape, memory, botanical life, climate, or embodied relationship to the natural world. A generic “I need quiet” application is probably weaker here than a project that knows why Bloedel is the room.
Corsicana Artist and Writer Residency — Funded Residency 2027
Deadline: September 1, 2026
Website: corsicanaresidency.org/apply · Two-month funded residency · $30 application fee
Corsicana offers two-month funded residencies inside 100 West, a preserved 1890s Odd Fellows lodge in downtown Corsicana, Texas, about fifty miles south of Dallas. Each term hosts two artists and one writer; 2027 terms run January 4–February 23, March 1–April 27, and October 11–December 7. Residents receive lodging, dedicated studio space, airport transportation from Dallas/Fort Worth, staff support, equipment access, and connection to North Texas cultural networks.
For playwrights, the selling point is not theatre infrastructure; it is scale and context. Corsicana’s history — oil boom, decline, and contemporary rural/small-town revival — could be fertile ground for writers working with place, archive, extraction, labor, family systems, or the mythology of the American South and West. The application requires two references but no recommendation letters; notification comes by October 1..
Premiere Stages at Kean University — 2027 Premiere Play Festival
Deadline: Submissions OPEN September 1, 2026 · CLOSE November 1, 2026, 11:59 PM
Website: https://premierestagesatkean.com/play-festival/ · $4,000 + full Equity production · $1,500 runner-up · $1,000 finalists · No fee
Listed here at its opening date rather than its close, because September 1 is the date you can act on and because Premiere Stages encourages submitting early in the window. The 2025 Festival drew 805 submissions, narrowed to 78 semifinalists and four finalists. Waiting until Halloween drops your script into the deepest part of that pile.
This is the strongest regionally restricted opportunity of the fall and the money is real. Up to five plays are developed each year. Four to five finalists receive public readings with an Equity cast at the Bauer Boucher Theatre Center in spring 2027. One play is then selected for a full Equity production in a subsequent Premiere Stages season with a $4,000 advance and the option to retain the World Premiere brand. The runner-up receives $1,500 and an Equity 29-hour staged reading. The remaining finalists receive $1,000 each. There is no submission fee. Premiere Stages also advocates directly for festival writers with other theatres to secure subsequent productions, which is not boilerplate: the alumni list runs through Dominique Morisseau, Kimber Lee, George Brant, Sarah Gancher, Lindsey Ferrentino, Rogelio Martinez, Keith Josef Adkins, Kate Cortesi, Keelay Gipson, Matthew Paul Olmos, Gloria Majule, Vincent Terrell Durham, and Alyssa Haddad-Chin.
Eligibility is where writers self-disqualify, so read this twice. Playwrights must have strong affiliations with the greater metropolitan area, which Premiere defines as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, AND Delaware. Delaware surprises people and gets dropped from most secondhand listings. Plays must be full-length with a cast of no more than eight. Musicals, adaptations of existing plays or other sources, and solo shows are all ineligible. Scripts must be unpublished and unproduced, though readings and workshops are fine, and showcases and AEA Showcase Code productions generally do not disqualify unless the showcase ran repeatedly or drew major press coverage. One script per playwright. Playwrights must be available for the development schedule. Submit as a PDF through Submittable. Questions go to pfsubmit@kean.edu at any time, including eligibility questions, which they answer directly. Feedback on your script is available on request after finalists are announced.
Princeton University — Princeton Arts Fellowship
Deadline: September 8, 2026, 11:59 PM EDT
Website: arts.princeton.edu/fellowships · Two-year appointment · No fee
Funded in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Princeton Arts Fellowship goes to artists whose achievements demonstrate extraordinary promise in artistic practice and teaching. Playwrights are explicitly eligible alongside composers, conductors, musicians, choreographers, designers, directors, and performance artists. For this cycle Princeton is accepting applications only for the Program in Dance, the Program in Theater and Music Theater, and the Department of Music, which means theatre writers are in a genuinely narrowed field this year.
Fellows spend two years teaching and working inside the university community. Non-US citizens are welcome to apply and there is no age limit. Ineligible: holders of a Princeton PhD, previous Hodder Fellows, and anyone with a sustained and continuous relationship with the university (occasional and sporadic connections are fine). The fellowship cannot fund work leading to an MFA, PhD, or any other advanced degree, and fellows may not hold concurrent teaching positions elsewhere. Apply through Interfolio at apply.interfolio.com/187043.
Princeton University — The Hodder Fellowship, 2027-28
Deadline: September 8, 2026, 11:59 PM EDT
Website: https://arts.princeton.edu/fellowships/hodder-fellowship/ · $93,000 stipend · 10 months · No teaching · No fee
The Hodder is the closest thing in American arts funding to being handed a year. A $93,000 stipend for a ten-month appointment as a Visiting Fellow, no formal teaching, and what the fellowship's own founding language calls "studious leisure" to undertake significant new work. Fellows are selected, in the traditional phrasing, more for promise than for performance, and are meant to be artists with much more than ordinary intellectual and literary gifts. Given the strength of the pool, most successful fellows have published a first book or achieved something comparable in their own field.
As with the Princeton Arts Fellowship, this cycle is restricted to the Program in Dance, the Program in Theater and Music Theater, the Program in Visual Arts, and the Department of Music. Playwrights and performance artists apply under Theater and Music Theater. You need not be a US citizen. Previous recipients of the Princeton Arts Fellowship are not eligible. Note that both Princeton fellowships close the same night, and the applications are close enough in shape that preparing one gets you most of the way through the other.
MacDowell — Fellowship, Spring/Summer 2027 Season
Deadline: September 10, 2026, 11:59 PM ET (applications open August 17)
Website: https://www.macdowell.org/apply/apply-for-fellowship · No residency fees · Need-based stipends · Travel reimbursement
For residencies running March 1 through August 31, 2027. Theatre is one of MacDowell's seven recognized disciplines, and the sole criterion for acceptance is artistic excellence as judged by independent discipline-specific panels. Fellows receive a private studio, private accommodations, and three prepared meals a day on the 450-acre campus in Peterborough, New Hampshire. There are no residency fees, and need-based stipends and travel reimbursement grants are available. MacDowell is again offering stays of up to eight weeks, a length not available since 2020; the recommended minimum is two weeks and the average residency runs about thirty days.
Applicants must be at least 21 and not enrolled in a degree program, with the exception of ABD students. Recent cycles have drawn roughly 1,700 applicants for an acceptance rate near nine percent, so treat the work sample and project description as the whole application, because effectively they are. Collaborative teams of two apply through the regular process with individual applications and a joint description; as of January 2026 collectives of three to twelve people can apply through a single designated collective application. Applicants hear back roughly two and a half months after the deadline.
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation — 2027 Fellowship
Deadline: September 15, 2026 (work examples due September 29)
Website: https://www.gf.org/program/how-to-apply · US & Canada · No fee
Drama is a recognized Guggenheim field, and roughly 175 to 190 fellowships are awarded annually across the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences from a pool that ran to about 3,500 applications in a recent year. The foundation has awarded more than 18,000 fellowships since 1925. This is a mid-career award in the truest sense: it supports individuals who have already made significant contributions in their field and are looking for the time and resources to go further. Applicants propose a specific project and demonstrate they are prepared to complete it at the highest level.
Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States or Canada. Students are ineligible. Previous Guggenheim Fellows may not reapply. Institutional affiliation is not required, and independent writers and artists apply on equal footing with academics. You may apply individually or as a pair working on the same project. Plan the timeline: the portal opens in late summer 2026, applications close September 15, work examples must be uploaded or postmarked by September 29, and you will need three to four references who have agreed in advance to write on your behalf. Notification comes in late April 2027.
Rumble Theatre — Tremors Festival 2027
Deadline: September 15, 2026, 11:59 PM
Website: rumble.org / via Playwrights Theatre Centre · Works-in-progress · Festival presentation
Tremors is seeking proposals for projects, excerpts, and works-in-progress of roughly 25 to 35 minutes, presented as part of a shared festival bill structured like an “art party meets night market.” The key phrase in the call is “performance mode”: the work does not have to be finished, but it does need to be able to meet an audience.
This is a better fit for theatre makers than for writers simply mailing out scripts. Solo work, devised projects, excerpts from larger plays, and performance pieces with a live pulse can all make sense here. If your piece is still rough but already knows how it wants to behave in a room, Tremors is worth a serious look.
Qutub Minar Review — One-Minute Plays
Deadline: September 20, 2026
Website: qutubminarreview.wordpress.com · No fee · Non-paying
An international literary journal publishing poetry, very short fiction, interviews, reviews, memoir, travelogue, and one-minute plays. Up to three one-minute plays per submission, sent by email only to editorqutubminarreview@gmail.com with a cover letter and a short literary bio of roughly seventy words. Copyright reverts to the author after publication. There is no payment. For a playwright building an international publication list, or anyone who writes miniatures and has nowhere to put them, it is a clean and free credit.
**The New York Public Library — Cullman Center Fellowship, 2027-28**
Deadline: September 25, 2026, 5 PM EDT
Website: nypl.org — Cullman Center · $90,000 stipend · No fee
The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers awards a $90,000 stipend for the fellowship term running September 7, 2027 through May 26, 2028. It supports projects that draw substantially on the research collections of the Library's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue, and it seeks top-quality writing from creative writers and independent scholars as well as academics. Visual artists whose projects require extensive use of Library collections are also encouraged.
The commitment is real and should factor into whether you apply: fellows are expected to work at the Cullman Center five days a week, Monday through Friday, for the duration of the term. For a playwright with an archive-driven project, a historical subject, or a documentary theatre piece that needs sustained primary-source work, this is the best-funded research year available to a writer in New York. Online registration is required to submit, and applications cannot be accepted after the deadline. Notification in March 2027.
Women At Play(s) — Ninth Festival
Deadline: September 25, 2026
Website: womenatplays.ca · Canadian women playwrights · One-act festival
Women At Play(s) is seeking new original one-act plays by Canadian women playwrights, emerging or established, for its ninth festival. Plays must be unproduced, no longer than 20 minutes, and all characters must be women. The festival runs February 26 through March 7, 2027 at VideoCabaret in Toronto.
The constraint is the opportunity: all-women casts, short form, and a clean festival frame. For a Canadian woman playwright with a compact piece that does not need padding to justify itself, this is a targeted submission with a clear audience and established production history in Vancouver and Toronto.
⚠ COULD NOT CONFIRM: Could not confirm the September 25 deadline. Entry states Canadian women playwrights, which should be stated as a hard restriction if accurate.
Vermont Studio Center — Artist & Writer Residency
Deadline: September 30, 2026
Website: vermontstudiocenter.org/apply · Fellowships available · Application fee applies
Vermont Studio Center runs one of the main artist-and-writer residency programs in the country, with application cycles from August 15 through September 30 and February 15 through March 31. Applications are juried in a pool by a rotating panel of practicing artists and writers, and fellowship opportunities are attached to each deadline.
This is not theatre-specific, so playwrights should frame the application through the writing: language, structure, research, voice, and what concentrated time will accomplish on the page. It belongs here because it is a major residency door for writers broadly, and the September 30 deadline gives August readers time to prepare something better than a last-minute artist statement.
✓ Disclaimer Playwriting and screenwriting are named eligible genres alongside fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, hybrid forms, and translation. Every accepted resident receives at least a partial fellowship and roughly 35 percent receive full fellowships; standard residency cost without a full fellowship runs about $2,700 to $4,950 for two to four weeks. Jurors rotate at every deadline. Applicants from this cycle are notified by January 1.
OCTOBER 2026 DEADLINES
Millay Arts — Core Residency, April–July 2027
Deadline: October 1, 2026
Website: https://www.millayarts.org/residencies/core-residency/ · Fully subsidized · $45 application fee ($60 late) · $100 deposit
Two-week to month-long stays at Steepletop, the historic Hudson Valley estate of Edna St. Vincent Millay, in a cohort of six or seven multidisciplinary artists. The Core Residency is fully subsidized: private bedroom and studio, shared living spaces, laundry, darkroom, groceries, and communal dinners prepared by an in-house chef. Transportation to and from the Hudson and Pittsfield train and bus stations is included, with assistance arranging travel from Albany and Hartford airports. The only costs are the $45 application fee and a $100 nonrefundable deposit if invited.
Selection is by blind jury, so strip identifying information from your work sample. The jury composition rotates between the March and October deadlines, which means applying to both cycles gets your work in front of two different sets of readers. The October 1 deadline places residents April through July 2027. Millay also names several designated fellowships within the Core cohort, including the Charm City Fellow for applicants from Maryland, Pennsylvania, DC, New Jersey, Virginia, and the Virgin Islands with preference to Baltimore and BIPOC applicants and a travel stipend attached, and the Nancy Graves Fellow for archive-based work drawing on the Nancy Graves Memorial Library collection on site. You are not required to be eligible for any of them to apply.
Playwrights First Award — 2026-27 Season
Deadline: October 1, 2026 (window opened August 1)
Website: https://www.playwrights-first.com/ · $1,000 first place · Professional New York reading when feasible
A small, long-running award with an unfussy proposition: $1,000 to the first-place play, and, when feasible, a professional reading before a New York audience. The submission window is open from August 1 through October 1, which makes it one of the few prizes on this list you can act on the day this newsletter lands and still have two months.
Review the How to Submit page for current instructions before sending, as the organization posts its guidelines fresh each season. This is a good landing spot for a full-length that has been through a draft or two and needs a reader outside your circle.
The Soliloquist Journal — Fall 2026 Issue
Deadline: October 20, 2026
Website: The Soliloquist Journal · No fee
The Fall 2026 issue is built around the mechanics of memory loss, chosen and unchosen. The editors want raw and specific work tracing what has been lost, blurred, or deliberately buried, and they have published five subthemes that read like assignments worth taking: selective erasure, the things we forget on purpose; phantom memory, the ache that lingers after the thing itself is gone; the unreliable archive, misremembering as its own act of creation; inherited forgetting, family silences and generational gaps; and the slow fade of aging, illness, and distance.
They are reading soliloquies alongside poetry, which makes this an unusually natural home for a monologue that works on the page. Email the work as a single Word or PDF document to thesoliloquistmag@gmail.com with the subject line "Fall 2026 Submission – [Your Name]."
Just past the window and worth calendaring now: the Reva Shiner Full-Length Play Competition at Bloomington Playwrights Project and the Patchwork Play Festival in Chicago both close October 31, 2026. Patchwork is seeking unproduced one-acts on the theme of Alienation, with nine finalists produced in February 2027 and two $250 awards, one juried and one audience-voted.
ROLLING, EMERGENCY & MEDICAL FUNDS
These have no deadline. They are here because the month you need them is never the month you went looking. Bookmark them now.
Dramatists Guild Foundation — Emergency Grants
Deadline: Rolling
Website: dgf.org — grants · One-time grants · No fee
DGF awards one-time emergency grants to individual playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists facing severe hardship or unexpected illness. This is the fund built specifically for our field, and it does not require Guild membership, though membership is one route to eligibility.
To be considered, you must have had a play or musical presented for a paying audience anywhere in the United States or Canada, or published by a legitimate publishing or licensing company, or be an active member of the Dramatists Guild. DGF also administers housing assistance grants for theatre writers carrying accumulated housing expenses. Reach the grants office at (212) 391-8384.
Foundation for Contemporary Arts — Emergency Grants
Deadline: Rolling, reviewed monthly
Website: foundationforcontemporaryarts.org — Emergency Grants · $500–$3,000 · Average grant approximately $1,900
FCA is the fund for a specific and common situation: you have a sudden unanticipated opportunity to present your work and no time to raise money for it, or you have hit an unexpected and unbudgeted expense on a project that is close to completion with a committed performance date. Performance art and theatre are eligible disciplines and theatre artists appear regularly in the recipient list.
Applications are reviewed monthly rather than on an annual cycle, which is what makes this usable in real time. Grants run $500 to $3,000. Note the framing carefully: this is a project-emergency fund, not a personal-hardship fund. If the emergency is medical or financial rather than production-related, DGF and the Entertainment Community Fund are the right doors.
Entertainment Community Fund
Deadline: Rolling
Website: https://entertainmentcommunity.org/ · National · Union and non-union
Formerly The Actors Fund, and considerably broader than the name suggests. The Fund assists people working in theatre, film, television, radio, music, dance, opera, and circus across the country, with emergency financial assistance, affordable housing, health care and insurance counseling, secondary career development, and senior care. Programs run through offices in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and eligibility varies by program.
The insurance counseling alone is worth a phone call for any writer navigating marketplace coverage between contracts, and it costs nothing. Call 800.221.7303.
Authors League Fund
Deadline: Rolling
Website: https://authorsleaguefund.org/ · Grants, not loans
The Authors League Fund provides no-strings assistance to professional writers, including dramatists, who are in financial need because of medical or health-related problems, temporary loss of income, or other misfortune. Funds are given as grants rather than loans and there is no repayment obligation.
Confirm current eligibility criteria on the Fund's site before applying, particularly the publication and production history requirements, which are specific.
A note on the Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grants, which run a cycle opening August 18 and closing September 15, 2026: playwrights and theatre writers are not eligible. The program is limited to generative artists working in visual arts, film, video, electronic and digital arts, and choreography, and performing artists in live performance are explicitly excluded. It circulates every year in general arts roundups as though it were open to all disciplines. It is not. Do not spend the afternoon.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Eugene O'Neill Theater Center — National Playwrights Conference 2027
Deadline: Window announced in August; historically falls in September
Website: https://www.theoneill.org/npc · Multi-week residency · Stipend · $15 administrative fee (waivers available)
The single most important date on the fall calendar and the one nobody can give you yet. The O'Neill announces its NPC application window in August each year, and it generally falls in September. The 2026 cycle ran September 2 through 18, moved a week earlier than usual because applications climbed from about 1,200 to more than 1,500. Sign up for the O'Neill mailing list now rather than checking the page in September.
What is already known for planning purposes: open blind submissions, no agent or nomination required, one play per writing team, cast size capped at ten actors with plays of six or fewer historically the most successful, minimum sixty minutes, no musicals and no ten-minute plays, and no professional production or option prior to the summer of the conference. Selected playwrights receive a week-long workshop with a director, dramaturg, and professional Equity cast, two public script-in-hand readings, a designer conversation, and a multi-week residency on the ninety-acre Waterford campus with room, board, and a stipend. The administrative fee has been reduced to $15 with fee waivers available first-come, first-served.
Playwrights' Center — Jerome and Many Voices Fellowships
Deadline: Applications open fall 2026; Jerome historically closes in November
Website: https://pwcenter.org/programs/jerome-fellowships/ · $25,000/year salary · Employer-sponsored health insurance · $3,000/year development funds
The Jerome Fellowship is a two-year professional development residency in Minnesota for early-career playwrights, and its structure is close to unique in the field: fellows are classified as part-time employees of the Playwrights' Center with a salary of $25,000 a year paid biweekly, eligible for all employee benefits including employer-sponsored health insurance, plus $3,000 a year for customized play development with professional directors, dramaturgs, and actors. In exchange, fellows satisfy fifteen hours of work activities per year for the Center. Applicants may not have had more than two plays fully produced by professional theatres at the time of application.
The Center runs its fellowship applications on a fall cycle, with Jerome historically closing in early November and Many Voices, which supports early-career BIPOC playwrights, following later that month. McKnight programs and the McKnight National Residency and Commission follow in December. None of these were open as of this writing. Email Artistic Programs Manager Julia Brown at juliab@pwcenter.org to be notified when applications open, and note that Jerome requires two letters of recommendation received by the deadline, so line up your recommenders now.
Also closing in December and worth preparing over the fall: the Page 73 Playwriting Fellowship, and the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship. Ucross reopens January 15 for its Fall 2027 session at a $40 fee with a $1,500 stipend attached to accepted residencies.
The Drama League / Chautauqua Theater Company — FutureNow Fellowships
Deadline: 2027 application opens September 2026
Website: dramaleague.org/futurenow-directing-fellowships · Director-playwright duos · Paid fellowship
FutureNow is a director-playwright development partnership between The Drama League and Chautauqua Theater Company. Two duos are selected; each director and playwright applies together with a project they want to develop. The fellowship includes mentorship, financial awards, housing and travel support that varies by phase, a Chautauqua residency period, and a public workshop with actors and a design team.
The playwright benefit is currently listed as $425 per week for five contiguous weeks, with a possible additional three weeks pending funding, plus up to $200 in travel health insurance reimbursement and access to Drama League programming. This is one to prepare before the portal opens: you need both the script/project and the right director partner. Good pairings are hard to assemble on deadline.
JOBS — THEATRE & LITERARY POSITIONS
August through October is the front half of the academic hiring season for positions beginning fall 2027. If a teaching line is anywhere in your plan, this is the two-month stretch in which most of them post.
Lincoln Center Theater — Literary Manager / Dramaturg
Deadline: August 4, 2026
Website: playbill.com/job/literary-manager-dramaturg-at-lincoln-center-theater/57b15c84-f44a-4514-8850-57442eb4738d · New York, NY · Full-time
The Literary Manager/Dramaturg works with Kewsong Lee Artistic Director Lear deBessonet on selecting, developing, and producing new work across the season. This is the second season under deBessonet's leadership, alongside Managing Director Mike Schleifer, Executive Producer Bartlett Sher, Producer Nicole Kastrinos, and LCT3 Artistic Director and Producer Maria Manuela Goyanes.
This is a full-time, exempt, salaried position with an annual salary range of $125,000-$135,000. Lincoln Center Theater provides comprehensive benefits including: Paid Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance, 403(b) and Employer Match, and Paid Time Off.
Requirements include at least five years with the new play development process as an artist, producer, literary manager, or dramaturg, experience in dramaturgy and dramatic structure, and experience both with new play development and with the reinvestigation of classic texts. LCT states a commitment to applicants aligned with its values of empathy, dignity, and care. Search the current listing through Playbill Jobs, which is where it was posted.
Lincoln Center Theater — Community Engagement Assistant
Deadline: August 10, 2026
Website: https://playbill.com/job/community-engagement-assistant-at-lincoln-center-theater/ceba9f91-9e48-4399-8226-71ac1103045f · New York, NY · Full-time · $60,000–$65,000
Lincoln Center Theater is hiring a Community Engagement Assistant to support the planning, administration, and execution of community engagement programs and partnerships connected to LCT’s artistic programming. The role sits at the intersection of theatre, education, civic programming, and logistics: workshops, discussions, audience engagement, partner events, registration, materials, evaluation, and on-site support.
This is not a literary job, but it is a credible theatre-career job at a major institution with benefits, hybrid structure, and a salary range of $60,000–$65,000. They want two to four years of professional community-engagement experience in the arts/cultural sector, strong administrative skills, and the ability to work across New York City communities. Worth flagging for theatre people who build programs around art, not only people who make the art.
New York City Children’s Theater — Production Manager
Deadline: August 14, 2026
Website: NYFA Job Listings · New York, NY · Full-time · $50,000–$60,000
New York City Children’s Theater is hiring a Production Manager to oversee the technical and logistical life of productions and events: budgeting, scheduling, designer and technician coordination, production meetings, load-ins, technical rehearsals, previews, performances, and strike. The role works with the Artistic Director, Producing Director, Managing Director, designers, stage management, and technical staff.
The company’s TYA focus makes this less broadly relevant than an adult literary posting, but the job itself is a real production-management lane for theatre workers. Notably, the responsibilities include show-rights administration, licensing agreements, and contract negotiation with writers, playwrights, composers, publishers, literary managers, and agents. For a production person who also understands scripts and rights, this may be a better fit than the title suggests.
Academic Positions — Fall 2027 Hiring Cycle
Deadline: Rolling; most postings appear August through November
Website: urta.com/job-listings · Faculty, staff, and administrative
Four sources cover nearly the entire theatre academic market, and checking them weekly through the fall is more productive than any single application. URTA Job Listings at urta.com carries the widest range of university theatre positions including production and technical lines. HERC Jobs at main.hercjobs.org duplicates much of what HigherEdJobs carries and is far easier to search and read. The Academic Jobs Wiki page for Theater/Drama is crowdsourced, updated in near-real time, and frequently lists deadlines before the institution's own posting surfaces in aggregators. LMDA at lmda.org/jobs is the place for dramaturgy and literary management specifically.
For the non-academic side, Playbill Jobs and ArtSearch carry most producing-theatre literary, artistic, and administrative openings. Recent playwriting-specific faculty searches at Brown, Barnard, Colorado College, and Middlebury all posted in the September to November range in prior cycles, which is a reasonable guide to when comparable lines will appear this year.
