GET WHAT YOU WANT
66 Opportunities · Fellowships · Residencies · Contests · Festivals · Commissions · Emergency Funds · Screen · Jobs
Deadlines run October 1 through December 31, 2026.
Camargo Foundation — Camargo Fellowship, 2027-2028 [CLOSES TODAY]
Deadline: October 1, 2026, 5:59 p.m. EST / 23:59 CET
Website: https://camargofoundation.submittable.com/submit
€3,500 stipend · No application fee · 10 weeks · Cassis, France · Open internationally
Ten weeks on the Mediterranean in a cohort of seven artists and seven scholars, with a furnished apartment, a studio, basic travel funding, and €3,500 paid at €350 a week. The Foundation has confirmed this is the last fellowship it will award through a public open call before its selection process changes in July 2027. Theatre directors and performance artists are named, the bar is five years of professional practice, and the program funds research rather than production. If it has been on your someday list, someday ends at 5:59 tonight.
The New Harmony Project — 2027 Writers' Residency [CLOSES TODAY]
Deadline: October 1, 2026. No time or time zone published.
Website: https://www.newharmonyproject.org/residency-info
No out-of-pocket cost · Honorarium · Travel, lodging, and all meals covered · New Harmony, IN
Eighteen theatre, film, and television writers, ten days, May 20 through 30, 2027, with air travel, meals, a private room, and an honorarium all covered. You choose one primary medium and submit a ten-page sample plus a full-length work in it. No closing time is printed, so submit by midday rather than gambling on midnight.
Playwrights First Award — 2026-27 Season [CLOSES TODAY]
Deadline: October 1, 2026 per the organization. September 30 per the most widely circulated listing.
Website: https://www.playwrights-first.com/
$1,000 first place · No fee · Professional New York reading when feasible
The organization's homepage says October 1. The listing most writers see says September 30. If you have not sent it, send it this morning and accept the risk. One full-length per writer, no prior full production, three PDFs to Playwrightsfirst1st@gmail.com named exactly LastName TITLE.pdf, LastName RESUME.pdf, and LastName SUMMARY.pdf.
Southeast Missouri State University — Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival [CLOSES TODAY]
Deadline: October 1, 2026, or earlier if the 400-script cap filled
Website: https://semo.edu/colleges-departments/arts-media/conservatory/lanford-wilson-submission-guidelines
$15 full-length, $10 short · Fee waivers honored, students free · $750 stipend · World premiere for the winner
Plays built around characters aged 15 to 30, with a world premiere and Concord consideration for the winning full-length. Scripts must be double-spaced, which is not standard play format and is the formatting rule people miss. If the cap has already filled, the portal will tell you.
Durango PlayFest — 2027 Festival [CLOSES TODAY]
Deadline: October 1, 2026, or earlier if the 200-script cap filled
Website: https://durangoplayfest.org/submit-a-play/
$25 fee · $500 stipend plus airfare, lodging, and meals · Continental US residents
Two public readings and paid travel to southwest Colorado for unproduced dramas and comedies running 80 to 110 pages with one to six characters. No musicals.
The Jokes On Her — Annual Comedy Prize [CLOSES TODAY]
Deadline: October 1, 2026
Website: https://www.jokesonher.org/submit
$5,000 grant plus an industry reading in NYC · Women, women-identifying, and femme writers · US or Puerto Rico · 21+
Five thousand dollars and a New York industry reading for an unproduced full-length comedy. An option or a scheduled production disqualifies the play. Notification is not until August 2027, so do not hold the script off the market waiting.
Invisible Theatre — Going It Alone, 4th Annual Monologue Festival [CLOSES TODAY]
Deadline: October 1, 2026
Website: https://invisibletheatre.com/shows/going-it-alone-2/
No fee · Honorarium, amount not published · Open worldwide
Standalone monologues under six to seven minutes, performed in Tucson in June 2027. Not an excerpt from a full-length. Questions to info@invisibletheatre.com.
The Museum of Loss and Renewal — Individual Residency, Collemacchia, Italy [CLOSES TODAY]
Deadline: October 1, 2026
Free to apply · €500 per week to attend · No stipend
Theatre and playwriting are listed disciplines, stays run two to twenty-four weeks, and partners and children are welcome. It is a purchase, not funding. Price it against a quiet month at home.
Baryshnikov Arts Center — 2027 Residency
Deadline: October 2, 2026
Website: https://baryshnikovarts.org/residency-program/
$2,000 stipend · New York, NY
BAC hosts up to 20 artists a year working in dance, music, theatre, multimedia, or any combination. Residency artists receive one or two weeks of studio space with up to 48 hours of exclusive use per week, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday, a $2,000 stipend regardless of residency length, an opportunity for an invited work-in-progress showing, and professional video and photo documentation. The documentation is worth more than most artists expect. Good footage of a work in progress is what gets the next presenter to say yes.
Read the discipline list carefully. Theatre is named. Playwriting is not. This is a studio and creation residency built around time in a room, so the strong application is a piece that needs bodies and space, not a draft that needs solitude. A writer-director, a devising company, a solo performer, or a playwright with performers attached fits the frame. A playwright with a script and a laptop is applying against the grain.
Applicants must be 22 or older and cannot be enrolled in high school, undergraduate, or graduate study during the residency. There is no geographic restriction, but travel, accommodations, and visas are your responsibility, and the flat $2,000 pays the same for two weeks as for one. Factor that into which you request. The page publishes no application fee. Decisions by December 19, 2026. Questions to residencies@baryshnikovarts.org.
Mesa Refuge — 2027 Residencies
Deadline: October 4, 2026
Website: https://mesarefuge.org/apply/
Free residency · $35 fee, waivers available · Two weeks · Point Reyes Station, CA
Playwriting and screenwriting are both explicitly listed disciplines. Fourteen days in a house on the edge of Point Reyes with a private bedroom, shared space with two other residents, and some meals. The residency itself costs nothing. There is no artist stipend and no travel stipend, so budget for getting there and for eating.
Be honest about fit. Mesa Refuge states that it prioritizes nonfiction books, long-form journalism, documentary film, and podcasts, and it favors work on nature and climate, economic and racial and gender equity, and social justice. A playwright is eligible and a playwright with a documentary impulse or an explicit subject in those areas is competitive. A play about a family in a kitchen is not what this panel is reading for. Priority also goes to first-time residents.
The $35 fee is waivable. Email nkansky@mesarefuge.org and ask. Materials are a writing sample of 2,000 words or ten pages maximum, a resume, a headshot, a bio, and two references. Notification is stated as early 2027.
Amplify Arts — 2027 Fellowship
Deadline: October 4, 2026, 11:59 p.m. Central
Website: https://www.amplifyarts.org/events-blog/2027-fellowship
$10,000 in project support · No fee · Omaha and Council Bluffs metro only · Theme: Migration
Use the direct link. Amplify's own open-calls index does not list this fellowship. Up to three fellows receive $10,000 in project support plus individualized mentorship and a cohort-based feedback structure across a twelve-month term running January 2027 through January 2028. No application fee and no formal education requirement.
The geography is exact and it is the whole gate. You must be based in the Omaha and Council Bluffs metro area, defined as Washington, Douglas, Cass, Sarpy, and Saunders counties in Nebraska, and Pottawattamie, Mills, and Harrison counties in Iowa. Applicants must be at least 19. Individuals apply, and so do collectives and collaborative groups with a sustained history of working together, which opens the door to a devising company or a writer-director pair.
Two things to weigh before you spend a week on this. The 2027 cycle centers on Migration and how movement shapes communities, environments, and collective futures. And the named forms are site-responsive installations, book and publishing projects, films, performances, and other publicly engaged project-based work. Playwriting is not named. A straight play submitted as a play is applying uphill. A play framed as publicly engaged project-based work, with a specific community and a specific public, is not.
The application is an artist statement, a project description, a project budget, a work sample, and a works cited page, through Submittable. Application status updates go out October 30, 2026.
Sesame Workshop — Writers' Room, 2027 Cohort
Deadline: October 5, 2026, 12:00 p.m. noon EST
Website: https://sesameworkshop.org/our-work/fellowships/writers-room/
Free to apply and attend · Up to 6 writers · US citizens and permanent residents, 21+
Noon, not midnight. That is the detail that costs people this application every year.
Children's television is an underused entry point for playwrights and Sesame Workshop runs one of the few structured programs in it. Up to six writers are selected for eight three-hour instructional sessions, three one-hour mentoring sessions, and fifteen hours of office hours, running February through June 2027. The program is virtual with an in-person finale in New York City, and you must commit to all of it. Select participants see their scripts performed in a live table read. No stipend figure is published, so do not budget for one.
The disqualifiers matter. US citizen or permanent resident, 21 or older, and if you have written more than six episodes for a produced network or streaming scripted series you are out.
The submission is small and unforgiving. One professionally formatted original script of no more than twelve pages, kid-friendly for ages up to 12, using no Sesame Street characters or intellectual property. A resume of two pages maximum, and the site states that anything longer will be disqualified. A script description of 100 words maximum and a personal statement of 250 words maximum on your interest in children's media. Interviews run in January 2027.
PEN America — U.S. Writers Aid Initiative, Fall Cycle
Deadline: October 5, 2026. Window opened September 15.
Website: https://pen.org/us-writers-aid-initiative/ · Portal: https://pen.submittable.com/submit/199916/u-s-writers-aid-initiative
No fee · Playwrights explicitly eligible · Peer-committee review
Playwrights are named in the eligible group alongside fiction and nonfiction authors, poets, translators, and journalists. The professional credential PEN accepts for a dramatist is a full-length play performed in a theater by a professional theater company, and an academic production counts if you were not a student at the time. That is a clean checkable standard.
This is not rolling. PEN runs three cycles a year and the fall one closes October 5. Applications received by a deadline are reviewed before the last day of that month. A volunteer committee of literary peers reads every application, and finalists must supply documentation supporting their stated need before funds are released. Submitting false or misleading documentation is disqualifying.
The fund is for acute short-term financial need following an emergency, not for residencies, equipment, or writing expenses. Anyone currently enrolled in a degree program is ineligible, and anyone who has already received two grants cannot apply again. The current program page does not publish the award amount. PEN's own announcements have described one-time grants of up to $3,500. Apply in the cycle closest to the crisis rather than waiting to make a better case.
Fulbright U.S. Student Program — 2027-28 Competition
Deadline: October 6, 2026, 5:00 p.m. ET national deadline. Campus deadlines run four to six weeks earlier.
Website: https://us.fulbrightonline.org/applicants · Portal: apply.iie.org/fulbrightusstudent
Full grant with stipend, travel, and health benefits · US citizens with a bachelor's degree
The early-career companion to the Scholar program and the right door for a playwright a few years out of an MFA. Creative and Performing Arts projects fall under the Study/Research grant category and are available in nearly every country where those grants are offered.
Playwrights apply under Creative Writing, not under Theater Arts, and the page limit is absolute. The Creative Writing portfolio is a maximum of ten pages. Prose is double-spaced; playwrights submit in proper script format rather than double-spaced. Indicate the genre in parentheses after the title and submit as a PDF. Exceeding ten pages renders the application ineligible. The Theater Arts categories exist only for actors, who submit two contrasting monologues on unedited video, and directors, who need at least three productions directed.
Eligibility is US citizenship, a bachelor's degree by the grant start date, and no PhD. The experience guideline for artists is roughly seven years or less of professional work. If you are enrolled at or affiliated with a US institution you must apply through your campus Fulbright Program Adviser, and campus deadlines run weeks to months ahead of October 6. Find your adviser this week.
The application is a Statement of Grant Purpose capped at 6,000 characters including spaces, short answers on flexibility and adaptability and community engagement at 2,000 characters each, a 1,000-character statement on the impact of the award, three recommendation letters, an affiliation letter from a host-country institution, transcripts, a language evaluation where required, and the portfolio. Submissions are final and cannot be unsubmitted for any reason. Start from the country award catalog, not from your project.
Millay Arts — Core Residency, Late Deadline
Deadline: October 8, 2026, 12:00 p.m. noon EST. The regular October 1 deadline has passed.
Website: https://www.millayarts.org/residencies/core-residency/ · Portal: https://millayarts.submittable.com/submit
Fully subsidized · $60 late fee · $100 deposit if accepted · Austerlitz, NY
The late window closes at noon, not midnight. The regular deadline was October 1. Millay's Submittable listing keeps a late window open until October 8 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern for $60 instead of $45. Millay's own website prints "12pm midnight," which contradicts itself. Go by Submittable, and submit by the morning of the 8th.
Playwriting is its own submission category at Millay. So is screenwriting. That is a front door, and it is rarer than it should be. This cycle places residents April through July 2027 at Steepletop, Edna St. Vincent Millay's former estate in Columbia County, in a cohort of six or seven multidisciplinary artists. Standard sessions run about three and a half weeks, with twelve-day options in June and September.
The Core Residency is fully subsidized. Private bedroom and private studio with linens, shared living spaces, laundry, a black and white darkroom, a library, groceries, and communal dinners prepared by an in-house chef. Transportation from regional train and bus stations is included. Accepted residents pay a $100 nonrefundable deposit and nothing else.
Selection is by blind jury, so strip identifying information from your work sample. Materials are a one-page artist statement, a work sample of 20 pages maximum, a one-page bio, and your scheduling preferences. Jury composition rotates between the March and October deadlines, which means applying to both cycles puts your work in front of two different sets of readers. Named fellowships run inside the Core cohort, including the Charm City Fellow for mid-Atlantic residents, the Nancy Graves Fellow for archive-based work, and the Vincent Prize Fellow for trans and genderqueer applicants. You do not need to qualify for any of them to apply. Do not confuse this with the Steepletop Residency, which is the fee-paying program at $4,000 for a full session or $2,000 for a half. Same deadlines, entirely different economics.
Over Our Head Players — Snowdance 2027
Deadline: October 9, 2026
Website: https://www.overourheadplayers.org
No fee · $300 first, $200 second, $100 third, $50 finalist royalty · Racine, WI
A no-fee ten-minute festival that actually pays finalists. Cash to three winners plus a $50 royalty to every play that makes the finalist round, which is more than most short-play festivals offer anyone below first place. One to four characters, ten minutes maximum. Audiences vote across the run and the results determine the winners, which makes this a comedy-friendly room and a poor fit for anything that needs a silent house.
Djerassi Resident Artists Program — 2027 Season
Deadline: October 9, 2026. Window opened September 1.
Website: https://djerassi.org/apply/2027residency/ · Guidelines: https://djerassi.org/apply/application-guidelines/ · Portal: https://djerassi.slideroom.com
One month at no cost to the artist · Woodside, CA · Drama named in the Literature category
Djerassi accepts scripts and says so in writing. The Literature category on the application guidelines page covers "Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, translation, and librettos." Drama is named, not implied. The work sample allowance for scripts is up to 30 pages, double-spaced, in a single PDF. That is a real front door at one of the most competitive residencies in the country, and most playwrights never look because the program's public face is science and visual art.
The residency is one month on a 583-acre ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains above Woodside, offered at no cost to the artist. Living and studio space are provided. Shortened or partial residencies are not available, so do not apply unless you can clear a full month. The program expects to seat roughly 40 to 45 new artists across five cohorts in 2027: February 16 through March 16, March 30 through April 27, June 22 through July 27 (Leonardo@Djerassi), August 17 through September 14, and October 19 through November 16.
The supported disciplines are choreography, literature, music composition, visual arts, media arts and new genres, and science and technology. That mix is deliberate, and the cross-disciplinary conversation over dinner is a large part of what people come away with. This is a place to be around a composer and a molecular biologist for four weeks, not a place to hide. Djerassi has hosted more than 2,700 artists over 43 years.
Two things the program does not publish anywhere on its site: the application fee, if there is one, and the notification date. The only money language is that residencies are awarded competitively at no cost. A fee, if it exists, will surface at SlideRoom checkout. Ignore the older artist-residencies page, which still shows a November 2025 deadline. Questions to apply@djerassi.org.
Great Plains Theatre Commons — 22nd Annual New Play Festival
Deadline: October 15, 2026. Window opened September 1.
Website: https://gptcplays.com/the-conference/how-to-apply-2/
$10 fee · $750 stipend plus travel, hotel, and most meals · Anonymous reading
GPTC in Omaha runs one of the best-value new play festivals in the country and reads more than 750 scripts a year to fill five slots. The 2027 festival runs May 23 through 29, 2027. Selected playwrights receive travel, hotel, most meals, local transportation, and a $750 stipend, and the play is assigned a professional director, cast, dramaturg, and design team. Attendance for the full week is mandatory, not encouraged.
The reading process is fully anonymous. None of the readers who review and select the plays will know who wrote them, which means your name, your MFA, and your production history do not help you here. Strip identifying material from the script itself.
Check the content restrictions first. Scripts must run a minimum of 30 pages. One-acts and full-lengths both qualify. No musicals and no plays for young audiences, both flatly excluded. No professional production, though other development is fine. One play per playwright per year, and a script submitted in a prior year may be resubmitted. The $10 fee is paid by PayPal alongside the Google Form application. Note that GPTC's own navigation still says "2026 New Play Festival" while the body copy says 2027. The body copy is correct. Questions to commons@gptcplays.com or 402-205-4882.
Theatre 33 at Willamette University — 2027 Season
Deadline: October 15, 2026
Website: https://arts.willamette.edu/theatre33/play-submissions/
Pacific Northwest playwrights, Canada included · Salem, OR · Two development tracks
The regional restriction is the whole opportunity. Theatre 33 reads only playwrights from the Pacific Northwest, and it counts Canada, which most American regional programs do not. Writers who have moved away are still eligible and are asked to explain their connection to the region in the application. If you grew up in Portland or Vancouver or Boise and now live in Brooklyn, say so and say how it shaped the work. This is the rare call where a biographical detail you usually leave off a cover letter is the qualifying credential.
Two engagement formats, substantially different in scale. The 3 X 33 Series gives a playwright 70 hours of rehearsal with a dramaturg, director, actors, and designers, culminating in a workshop production with four performances and audience feedback. Seventy hours with designers in the room is more development time than most nationally known conferences provide. The Pop-up Series is the lighter track: 16 hours of rehearsal with a director and actors, feedback sessions, and three concert reading performances.
Plays and musicals are both accepted. Cast size runs from two to six actors, with doubling permitted if you supply a doubling list. Solo shows are not accepted. Scripts at any stage of development are welcome, but a new draft of something you have already submitted will not be read, so send something new or something meaningfully rewritten. The application is an online form covering the script proposal and its history, a statement of artistic purpose, the play's current status, and a bio or resume. Neither a submission fee nor a stipend is published anywhere on the page. Ask about both. Playwrights hear back within four months.
Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival — One Act Play Competition
Deadline: October 15, 2026
Website: https://www.tennesseewilliams.net/contests/ · Guidelines: https://tennesseewilliams.net/all-contest-guidelines/
$25 fee · $1,500 cash plus staged reading, festival pass, and publication
The strongest new item in this issue. Fifteen hundred dollars, a professional staged reading at the festival, a VIP festival pass the organization values at $600, publication in Bayou Magazine, a website feature, and a newsletter interview. Finalists receive a Festival LitPass. For a one-act, that package is close to the top of the field.
Eligibility targets emerging or previously unpublished playwrights. The play cannot have had a prior professional production or performance and cannot be under option, commission, or scheduled for professional production. Workshop stagings held for feedback do not disqualify you. Playwrights who entered and lost in previous years may re-enter. Previous winners may not. UNO Film and Theatre Arts and Creative Writing students and faculty are excluded.
Run time is one hour maximum, roughly 60 pages. Twelve-point Times or Arial, numbered pages, no cover page, title on the first page, cast of characters with descriptions. Your name must not appear anywhere in the script or in the filename. The judge is Justin Maxwell. One hard rule to plan around: no revisions are accepted after submission, and correcting a mistake means paying the $25 again. Proof it twice.
Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora — Drama and Performance Scripts
Deadline: October 15, 2026, 11:59 p.m. Central
Website: https://obsidian.submittable.com/submit
No fee · International · Black, African, and African Diaspora writers
Link readers straight to Submittable. Obsidian's own open-calls page advertises only an expired special issue, and the general drama category is visible only through the portal. Note also that Submittable displays the cutoff in Eastern time, which renders as "Oct 16, 1:00 a.m." That is the same moment. The operative cutoff is October 15 at 11:59 p.m. Central.
The call is for one act or a collection of short scenes running no longer than twenty pages in Samuel French format. Self-contained excerpts from longer works are welcome, which makes this a clean home for a strong twenty-minute stretch of a full-length that is not going anywhere else. There is no reading fee. Response time runs three to six months. Payment to contributors is not published, so ask.
Theatre Odyssey — 22nd Annual Ten-Minute Play Festival
Deadline: October 18, 2026
Website: https://theatreodyssey.org
First play free, second $10, third $20 · $500 best play · Florida residents only, 19+
A hard geographic gate and a real prize. Five hundred dollars for the best play, judged and produced in Sarasota. The first submission costs nothing, which makes this a free swing for any Florida playwright with a finished ten-minute piece. Applicants must be Florida residents and at least 19.
The Soliloquist Journal — Fall 2026 Issue
Deadline: October 20, 2026. Issue publishes October 25.
Website: Submit by email to thesoliloquistmag@gmail.com. Full call: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/07/14/call-for-submissions-the-soliloquist-journal-fall-2026-issue
Theme: The Anatomy of Forgetting
Send this by email. The journal's Canva-hosted site returns nothing readable to most automated tools and loads slowly or not at all in some browsers, which is why the UPenn CFP posting is the better reference for the guidelines.
The Fall 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. The published subthemes 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 read soliloquies alongside poetry, which makes this a natural home for a monologue that works on the page. Up to five original unpublished poems or soliloquies, 40 lines maximum each. Send a single Word or PDF document with the subject line "Fall 2026 Submission – [Your Name]" and a 50 to 70 word third-person bio. Response in one to two weeks. Neither a reading fee nor payment to contributors is stated in the call, so do not assume either way.
New York State Council on the Arts — State of the Arts Fellowship, Year 2
Deadline: October 21, 2026, 5:00 p.m. Window opened September 23.
Website: https://arts.ny.gov/SOAfellow · Guidelines: https://itswebny.widen.net/s/zwllwp5tzg/2026_27_artist_fellow_guidelines · Portal: https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/8845598/NYSCA-Artist-Fellowship-Application-2026
$60,000 per fellow, inclusive of project expenses · Four placements · New York State agencies
Sixty thousand dollars to embed an artist inside a New York State agency for a year. That is the biggest single number in the October section and it is not a residency, a prize, or a commission. It is closer to a civic job. NYSCA is placing four artists for 2026-27 at the NYS Canal Corporation, the Division of Human Rights in the Bronx, HCR/SONYMA in Albany and Manhattan, and OPWDD in Albany and Staten Island. The fellowship runs from February 2027 through spring 2028, split into a research phase from February to August and an implementation phase from August 2027 to February 2028. Virtual interviews happen in December.
"Artists from all disciplines are invited to apply." Playwrights are not named and not excluded. Read the agency list as a set of subjects, not a set of employers: human rights law, housing finance, the canal system, services for people with developmental disabilities. A playwright who already works documentary, verbatim, or community-sourced material has the strongest case, because the job is listening to an institution and making something from what it hears. Note that the $60,000 covers your project expenses too, so it is not all salary.
A Zoom information webinar runs October 1 at 11:00 a.m. Register from the program page. This is separate from NYSCA's FY2027 Support for Artists program.
Downtown Urban Arts Festival — DUAF 2027
Deadline: October 26, 2026
Website: https://www.duafnyc.com/submit
No fees of any kind · $1,200 to $2,000 playwright stipends plus $1,000 prizes · New York City
Entering its 25th year, and on the economics alone the strongest short-and-mid-length opportunity in this issue. No submission fees and no participation fees. Selected playwrights receive stipends of $1,200 for a short work or $2,000 for a full-length. On top of that, three $1,000 awards go to best full-length, best short, and audience favorite. The festival runs in June 2027 in Manhattan.
What DUAF supplies beyond money is a production apparatus most self-produced writers cannot buy: director and actor stipends paid by the festival, mentoring, casting assistance, technical design, rehearsal space, and administration of the Equity Showcase Code so you can legally use union actors. That last item alone justifies the application.
Two length categories. Short works run under 45 minutes. Full-length works run up to 70 minutes, which is shorter than the usual definition, so a 110-minute play fits neither box. DUAF wants new or existing work with minimal prior exposure, and imposes an exclusivity window: no concurrent New York City production within 30 days before or after the 2027 festival. Three uploads through the online form: a single document with bio, synopsis, and running time; the complete script as a PDF; and a photo of yourself as a JPG.
Shore Scripts — Short Film Fund, Final Deadline
Deadline: October 30, 2026, final tier
Website: https://www.shorescripts.com/shortfilmfund/ · Fees: https://www.shorescripts.com/rules-faq/
$15,000 production grant · $4,000 finishing funds · $59 final-tier entry fee · International
The fee amounts are not on the fund's landing page. They are on the rules and FAQ page: $39 early through August 20, $49 regular through September 30, $59 final through October 30. There is also a page overage charge most people miss. Scripts must run 2 to 30 pages, and you may exceed that by up to fifteen more pages to a 45-page maximum at $1 per page. Shore Scripts states plainly that it does not issue fee waivers, on the reasoning that waivers would be unfair to writers who paid.
Two cash awards anchor the fund. The Production Grant winner receives $15,000 to make the film. A separate Finishing Funds winner receives $4,000 to complete a film already shot. Winners also get mentorship from two-time Oscar-nominated producer Maria Gracia Turgeon, festival strategy guidance from a Tribeca programmer, free ARRI camera equipment rental, and industry distribution support. Shore Scripts has produced 28 films through the fund, and they have played Sundance, Tribeca, Cannes, BFI London, Austin, and Palm Springs.
The fund is unusually useful for playwrights and feature writers because it explicitly accepts proof-of-concept shorts for TV series and features. If you have a pilot or a feature nobody will finance on the page, this is a mechanism for building the eight-minute version that gets people to read the long version. Live-action and animation both qualify, worldwide. Writers must not have earned more than $50,000 in screenwriting fees in the prior twelve months. Prior applicants and finalists may re-enter, but past Grand Prize winners, second place winners, and Finishing Funds winners may not. Semi-finalists November 23, finalists December 4, winners December 16, 2026.
Art Explora and Cité internationale des arts — Artist's Residency Programme in Paris, 7th Open Call
Deadline: October 30, 2026, 11:59 p.m. Paris time, which is 6:59 p.m. Eastern
Website: https://www.artexplora.org · Call PDF: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/6107fc8664b5410e82635537/6aad537c9404c9c3a634bbb4_Opencall.pdf
No fee · €1,000 a month plus €3,000 production grant · Live-work studio in Montmartre · Open internationally, no age limit
A paid Paris residency with no application fee, which is rarer than it should be. Solo residents get a furnished live-work studio of about 50 square meters in Montmartre, €1,000 a month, a €3,000 production grant, and a return trip. Collectives, including artist and researcher or artist and curator pairs, share €2,000 a month and the €3,000 grant, with return travel for each member up to €2,000 total. Residencies run three or six months, and the committee decides which. Session 1 runs March through August 2027 and Session 2 runs September 2027 through February 2028. About twenty residents are chosen a year. Mentors include Marcella Lista, Marc Spiegler, and Sandra Terdjman.
The eligible disciplines are visual arts, performing arts, and digital arts. Theatremakers qualify under performing arts. Playwriting is not named, so the playwright who wins this is one whose work lives in performance, devising, or interdisciplinary practice rather than on the page alone. Two gates cut hard: five years of professional practice, and work already presented internationally. The committee also weighs why the project needs to be developed in France, so answer that question first. The application is a two-page project description, a portfolio of 15 pages maximum, a two-page CV, and a 1,500-character summary of your work with audiences, all in English, through the online form linked from the PDF. The only obligation is taking part in the Ateliers ouverts in February or June, and no final presentation is required. Session 1 residents are announced in January 2027. Questions to residences@artexplora.org. The same PDF advertises Vila 31 in Tirana, Albania, which explicitly names writers, but publishes no separate deadline for it.
Dayton Playhouse — FutureFest 2027
Deadline: October 31, 2026, or when 350 scripts arrive. Early-bird fee tier ends October 14.
Website: https://www.daytonplayhouse.com/submissions
$20 early, $30 after October 14, half price for Dramatists Guild members · $500 to the winner plus $500 more for production · Travel and lodging covered
The 350-script cap is the real deadline. Dayton states it will limit the total number of eligible submitted scripts to 350, which means submissions can close before Halloween. The fee also jumps on October 15: $20 becomes $30, and $10 becomes $15 for Dramatists Guild members. A script sent by the 14th costs you a third less.
Thirty-plus years running and still one of the most unusual weekends in the American theatre. Six unproduced full-length plays are selected and presented across a single festival weekend, some as staged readings and some as full dramatizations, each followed by public adjudication in front of the audience by a panel of theatre professionals brought in for the purpose. You sit there and listen to people take your play apart in a room full of strangers. Writers either love it or never do it twice, and the ones who love it come back.
Dayton covers travel and lodging for finalists who attend. The winner receives a $500 honorarium and the other finalists receive $100 each. The winning playwright then grants the theatre permission to produce the play in a subsequent mainstage season, which carries an additional $500 payment. Add it up and the winner is looking at $1,000 plus a fully produced run.
The rules are firm. Original work in English for adult audiences, full-length, minimum 75 minutes, unpublished and never produced for a paying audience. Staged readings and workshops do not disqualify you. No musicals and no children's plays. Up to three scripts per playwright. Submit an anonymized PDF with numbered pages, a synopsis of 500 characters maximum, a character breakdown, a setting, and a scene breakdown, with a completed form per entry. Finalists posted in April 2027. Festival July 16 through 18, 2027.
Eclectic Full Contact Theatre — Patchwork Play Festival 2027
Deadline: Play must be received by October 31, 2026
Website: https://www.eclectic-theatre.com/patchworksubmisions.html
Two $250 awards · Chicago · Theme: Alienation
Nine one-acts get full productions at The Edge Theater on North Broadway in Chicago, running February 26 through March 7, 2027. A panel of Chicago theatre professionals awards $250 to the best production and a separate $250 audience award goes to the festival favorite. Nine productions is an unusually large slate for a one-act festival, which means your odds here are better than the prize money suggests.
The theme is Alienation and it is a real filter rather than a suggestion. Read it as broadly as you like, but the play has to answer to it.
Memorize the technical restrictions. Maximum 30 minutes. No musicals. Previously unproduced, though staged readings are permitted. No copyrighted music unless you own the rights or hold written permission, which is the single most common reason short plays get pulled from festivals after selection. A playwright may submit up to two scripts per year but only one play per playwright will be programmed per season. The theatre does not state a submission fee anywhere on the page, and its submission email address is masked against spam bots, so you have to open the page in a browser to get it. The URL typo, "submisions," is correct as printed.
Proyecto´ace — Micro-Residencies, Buenos Aires
Deadline: October 31, 2026. Applications also accepted year-round.
Website: https://www.proyectoace.org/en/residencies/micro-residencies/
From $1,500 USD, housing extra · No stipend · Playwriting listed
Playwriting is explicitly listed. Residents get weekday studio access, critiques, a transport card, insurance, and an open-studio presentation. Cost starts at $1,500 USD depending on duration, and housing is extra. Legitimate, and not funding. Look at it as a purchase.
Kumu Kahua Theatre — Go Try Play Write
Deadline: Last day of every month, including October 31, November 30, and December 31
Website: https://www.kumukahua.org/gotryplaywrite
$100 plus a Bamboo Ridge Press subscription
The most reliable recurring small prize in the field. Kumu Kahua in Honolulu, partnered with Bamboo Ridge Press, posts a writing prompt at the start of every month and pays $100 plus a Bamboo Ridge subscription to the winner. Judging is anonymous. Submit through the Google Form linked on the page.
Check the page before you write. As of September 30, Kumu Kahua's page still displays the September 2026 prompt, a pair of Christmas-themed options due September 30, and has not posted October's. The prompt is the assignment, so a piece written to a stale prompt is a wasted month. Length caps have run to a five-page monologue or a ten-page scene, but the cap varies with the prompt. Standard Dramatists Guild format. The page states no fee and no eligibility restrictions, and it publishes no notification timeline and no time zone for the deadline. Kumu Kahua is in Hawaii, so submit a day early.
Treat this as a discipline device rather than a career move. It is a monthly deadline that costs nothing, produces a finished ten pages, and occasionally pays. Writers who use it consistently end up with a folder of scenes that become the raw material for longer work.
William Inge Center for the Arts — 10th Annual New Play Lab
Deadline: No calendar date. Submissions close when the first 100 arrive.
Website: https://ingecenter.org/new-play-lab/
No fee · Professional staged reading, masterclasses, full festival access · Independence, KS
Send this today or do not bother. The 2027 cycle publishes no deadline at all. Submissions close after the first 100 are received, which means the window could shut in a week. Prior cycles used an October 31 date; this one does not.
Selected playwrights receive a professional main-stage staged reading, facilitated feedback from national theatre professionals, exclusive masterclasses and workshops, full access to the festival April 29 through May 1, 2027, and meal vouchers. There are no fees to apply. Be clear-eyed about what is not offered: the page mentions no stipend, no travel, and no housing. You are paying to get to Kansas.
The length limit is measured in time, not pages. Thirty minutes of read time, and anything longer is disqualified. Maximum six actors. One submission per cycle. Email PDFs to submissions@ingecenter.org with the filename "2027 + Title," including character descriptions, a 75-word synopsis with content warnings, and a brief bio. You must attend the festival, the masterclass, the workshops, and your own reading.
Premiere Stages at Kean University — 2027 Premiere Play Festival
Deadline: November 1, 2026, 11:59 p.m. Window opened September 1.
Website: https://premierestagesatkean.com/play-festival/guidelines/
No fee · $10,000 plus a full Equity production · NY, NJ, CT, PA, DE affiliation required
The best risk-adjusted opportunity in this issue for anyone in the New York metro region, and the single largest theatre payday in the entire October-through-December window. Premiere Stages charges nothing and says so plainly: there is no application fee for any Premiere Stages program. The winner receives a $10,000 award and a full Equity production in the 2028 season. The runner-up receives $3,000 and a 29-hour staged reading. Remaining finalists receive $1,000 each.
Submit early. 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, and Premiere Stages encourages submitting early in the window.
Eligibility is regional and it is the whole ballgame. Playwrights must have strong affiliations with the greater metropolitan area, defined as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Delaware surprises people and gets dropped from most secondhand listings. Affiliation is broader than current residency, so writers who grew up, trained, or worked professionally in those states should apply and make the connection explicit.
The script rules disqualify a lot of good plays. Full-length only, cast of no more than eight, unpublished and unproduced with readings and workshops permitted. No productions or publications scheduled through September 2028, a longer forward window than almost any other contest, which eliminates scripts already committed elsewhere. Musicals, adaptations, and solo shows are all ineligible. One submission per playwright, and you must be available during the 2027-28 development schedule. Premiere Stages does not accept scripts written in any part or enhanced in any way by generative AI. Submit as a PDF through Submittable; hard copies are not read. Non-agent submissions must include a synopsis, development history, and bio or resume.
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, and Vincent Terrell Durham. Premiere Stages also advocates directly with other theatres to secure subsequent productions for festival writers, which is not boilerplate. Finalists in spring 2027, readings in June 2027, production in 2028. Questions to pfsubmit@kean.edu, including eligibility questions, which they answer directly.
University of Arkansas — Kernodle New Play Award
Deadline: Window opens November 1, 2026 and closes December 16, but the first 100 unsolicited submissions close it.
Website: https://theatre.uark.edu/callboard/kernodle-new-play-award.php
No fee · $500 · Full-length, 70+ minutes
November 1 is the real deadline for most people. The Kernodle accepts only the first 100 unsolicited submissions. Solicited work, agent submissions, and playwrights with Arkansas connections may submit through December 16. Everyone else is racing a hundred other writers to a form that opens on a Sunday.
No fee, $500 to the winner, one prize. Unpublished with no professional production. No theatre for young audiences and no musicals. Adaptations only with secured rights or a public domain source. One submission per writer. Full-length running 70 minutes or more. The application is an online form with a ten-page sample, a synopsis and script history, a bio, and the full manuscript, all as PDFs. Note that the page states notification in "Fall 2026," which cannot be right given the window closes in December. Ask.
The Studios at MASS MoCA — July through December 2027 Residencies
Deadline: November 1, 2026. Open call runs September 1 through November 1.
Website: https://massmoca.org/studios/
No application fee · More than 80 percent of residents attend free · North Adams, MA
Playwriting is a listed discipline. The subsidized rate is $650 a week, but MASS MoCA states that more than 80 percent of its residents attend with a full fellowship, meaning it costs them nothing, and artists who request aid typically pay somewhere between zero and $450 a week based on need. There is no application fee. There is also no artist stipend and no travel funding, so the money you save on the residency is the money you spend getting there.
Two to four weeks, open worldwide, any career stage. Teams may apply. Partners and children are allowed and there is a childcare stipend, which is rare enough to be worth naming. No pets. Residents are required to participate in open studios and give an artist talk. Being embedded in a contemporary art museum in the Berkshires is the actual draw here, and the strong application is one that has a reason to be there.
Volland Foundation — 2027 Residencies
Deadline: November 2, 2026
Website: https://artistcommunities.org/directory/open-calls/2027-volland-residencies
$25 fee · $500 for two weeks, $1,000 for four · Volland, KS
Playwriting and theatre are both listed disciplines, the residency is free, and it pays a stipend, which puts this ahead of most small residencies on economics alone. Two to four weeks, roughly three artists at a time, 18 or older, open worldwide, teams accepted.
Two practical gates. A car is required during the residency, which is not negotiable in rural Kansas. And no pets. Meals, travel, and supplies are on you.
Women in Film x The Black List — Episodic Lab, 2027 Cycle
Deadline: November 2, 2026, 11:59 p.m. PST. Applications open October 1. Technical support ends at 6:00 p.m. PST on the deadline day.
Website: https://womeninfilm.org/programs/writing/
$40 per application for non-members, lower for WIF members · No cash award · Los Angeles-based writers
Confirmed for 2027, and the window is one month long. The Episodic Lab is a development program for TV writers who are early enough that the lab can still change their trajectory. Everyone selected also becomes a 2027 WIF Fellow, which extends the support for another year. There is no cash award.
The eligibility is narrow on three fronts. You must be based in Los Angeles. You must have earned no more than $25,000 to date for TV writing. And you must be the sole author of the pilot you submit. Prior cycles were open to women, non-binary, gender-nonconforming, and trans writers; confirm the current language when the application opens. Lab sessions run in the evening, so a day job is not a barrier. The page still references March 2026 for availability, which looks like last year's date left in place. Ask before you plan around it.
Ensemble Studio Theatre — EST/Sloan Project Commissions
Deadline: November 3, 2026. Window opened September 15.
Website: https://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/est-sloan/submissions
New play commissions $5,000 to $10,000 · Rewrite commissions $2,000 to $5,000 · No fee · Science subject matter required
The best-paying commission on this list and the application is two pages. You submit a one-page description or a simple outline of the project plus a resume or biography for each collaborator. That is the whole thing. New play commissions run $5,000 to $10,000, rewrite commissions for existing scripts run $2,000 to $5,000, and regional development grants for theatres run $2,000 to $5,000, all awarded case by case. There is no fee.
The subject requirement is the gate. Your play has to engage hard science, technology, or the culture around them: mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, neuroscience, anthropology, archaeology, computer science, software development, engineering. Science fiction is excluded. Plays centered on a medical condition or disease are excluded. Plays for children are excluded. EST is looking for work about how scientific thinking shapes people and about the pressures scientists and engineers live under.
Individuals, creative teams, and regional theatres may all apply. Repeat submissions are not accepted unless EST invites you back or you have substantially revised the proposal, so make the first one count. EST accepts musicals at the commission stage but cannot develop them past it. Awards are generally announced in the summer after the deadline. Questions to sloanproject@ensemblestudiotheatre.org. The page prints no year and no time on the November 3 date, but November 3, 2026 is the operative Tuesday.
SeriesFest and Shondaland — Women Directing Mentorship, Cycle 8
Deadline: November 3, 2026, final tier, $75
Website: https://seriesfest.com/women-directing-mentorship/
Shadowing placement on a Shondaland production · No cash award · US or UK · 3 years professional experience
The $50 regular tier closed September 15. Anyone applying now pays $75, and no waiver policy is published.
The grand prize is a directing shadow on an episode of a Shondaland production, which is the kind of access no amount of self-financed short film work substitutes for. Winners and semi-finalists also receive all-access badges to SeriesFest: Season 13 in Denver in 2027, where the winner is announced, plus editorial and press amplification. There is no cash award.
Eligibility is more open than the title suggests. Applicants need three years of professional experience in any professional role, not only directing, which opens the door to writers, producers, and crew moving into episodic directing. You must be at least 21 and based in the United States or the United Kingdom. Anyone who has already directed a network series is out, and individual applicants only, no directing teams.
Materials are a work sample of a short or feature, a three to five minute personal introduction video, a directing reel under fifteen minutes, and a CV. Finalists are contacted by email in March 2027.
Artist in Residence at The Factory — 2027 Residency
Deadline: November 30, 2026
Website: https://artistcommunities.org/directory/open-calls/2027-artist-residency-open-call-factory
No application fee · Free residency · $1,600 food and supplies stipend plus $350 travel · Manchester, NH
The best free-plus-paid combination among the new residencies this month. No fee to apply, no cost to attend, a private studio apartment with heat, hot water, electricity, and internet included, and $1,950 in stipends between materials, food, and travel. One to three months, open worldwide, emerging and mid-career artists.
Read the discipline list before you invest the time. Theater and screenwriting are both listed. Playwriting itself is not on the list, which is either an oversight or a distinction, and it is worth an email to find out which. Obligations at the end include donating a work of art, participating in public programming, leading workshops, and mounting a solo or group exhibition, which shapes what kind of theatre artist this actually suits. Collaborators must each be accepted individually.
Orchard Project — 2027 Labs
Deadline: December 1. The 2027 cycle dates are not yet posted.
Website: https://orchardproject.com/op-submission-process-overview/
No fee to submit · No cost to participate · Housing and food covered on site · No stipend
Three Orchard Project pages still read "Submissions for all 2026 labs are due by December 1, 2025." The site has not been updated for 2027. December 1 is their firm annual pattern and the 2027 date is almost certainly the same, but it is not published yet. Check in early November.
Four labs. The Performance Lab is in person at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs. The Episodic Lab and the Audio Lab run as virtual cohorts. The Greenhouse is a year-long hybrid. There is no cost to submit and no cost to participate, and all on-site residency costs in Saratoga Springs, including housing and food, are covered.
State this part plainly, because writers assume otherwise: there is no stipend. Orchard Project says so directly, acknowledges that this may be a significant barrier to participation, and offers honoraria only for specific activities such as Summer Festival weekend sharings. Travel is usually not funded for generative residencies and usually is supported when the final session includes a sharing.
Eligibility is genuinely open. Theatremakers, writers, composers, teams, companies, and ensembles at any stage of development. No age limit, no location requirement, no agent needed, and you may be enrolled in school or working full time. For an artist who can afford unpaid weeks, this is one of the least gated development opportunities in the country.
Ruby Mountain Project — Artist Residency
Deadline: December 1, 2026
Website: https://www.rubymountainproject.com/artist-residency-program
No application fee · $500 residency cost, sliding scale available · Near Joshua Tree, CA
Theater and playwriting are both listed disciplines. One to seven weeks, with most cohorts running three weeks and up to three artists at a time. Open worldwide. Free to apply, $500 to attend with a sliding scale available.
Know what you are signing up for. Housing is vintage travel trailers, tents, or your own arrangements, and studios are converted shipping containers in the high desert. Some meals are provided. No pets. The project explicitly encourages BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, and early-career applicants, and states no productivity expectation, which is a genuine relief from residencies that want a deliverable.
Scriptapalooza Screenplay and Shorts Competition, 26th Annual
Deadline: December 1, 2026, early-bird tier. Later tiers January 4, February 1, March 1, April 5, 2027.
Website: https://filmfreeway.com/ScriptapaloozaScreenplayCompetition
$45 feature, $25 shorts at this tier · $10,000 first place
December 1 is the cheapest tier, not a closing date. Waiting costs about $20 more per script. Over $50,000 in total prizes, with $10,000 cash to first place plus software and industry access, and $500 to each of seven genre winners. Every script is read by a producer, manager, or agent, and Scriptapalooza circulates winners to a network it puts at 150-plus producers. Any writer 18 or older, 80 to 140 pages, English, 12-point Courier. Results event August 16, 2027. Feedback is available as a $90 add-on.
NRDC — Climate Storytelling Fellowship, 2027 Cycle
Deadline: December 4, 2026
Website: https://www.nrdc.org/RewriteTheFuture
$20,000 each to three fellows · No fee · Screenplays and pilots
The largest screen award in this issue and it costs nothing to enter. Three fellows receive $20,000 each plus six months of mentorship with industry professionals and climate storytelling experts. Partners on the program include the Black List, CAA Community + Impact, NBCUniversal, and the Redford Center.
The submission is a feature screenplay or a pilot that engages with climate change in a meaningful way through events, actions, character, emotions, plot, or setting. Read that last clause carefully. Setting counts. This does not have to be an issue script. A story where climate is the weather the characters live inside is exactly what the framing invites, and issue scripts are what the pile is full of.
The prior cycle closed November 28 and announced fellows in April. No notification date is published for this one. Questions to rewritethefuture@nrdc.org. Screen only, no stage work.
Atlanta Film Festival — Screenplay Competition, Final Deadline
Deadline: December 5, 2026, 11:59 p.m. EST
Website: https://filmfreeway.com/ATLFFscreenplaycompetition
Five winners at $250 to $500 each, plus travel, mentorship, and a live reading
The final tier of a long fee ladder that started in May. Extended-tier fees were $140 for a feature and $110 for a pilot or short; the final-tier figures are not published, so confirm at checkout. Five winners: three features at $500 each, one pilot at $350, one short at $250, all with a trophy, travel and accommodation, mentorship, festival access, and a live reading at the Creative Conference. Feature 70 to 130 pages, pilot 10 to 70, short 5 to 40. Original and unproduced, 12-point Courier, PDF, and the festival bars work made with AI tools.
The Drama League and Chautauqua — FutureNow Fellowships, 2027
Deadline: December 7, 2026. No time or time zone published.
Website: https://dramaleague.org/futurenow-directing-fellowships/
No fee, waivers available · Playwrights $2,125 · Directors up to $9,350 · Chautauqua, NY · Director and playwright apply together
The closing date is finally posted. Last issue it existed nowhere. FutureNow pairs a director and a playwright as a team with a project, and two duos are selected. Playwrights receive $425 a week for five contiguous weeks, $2,125 total, with up to three more weeks possible depending on funding. Directors receive $950 a week for up to eleven weeks, capped at $9,350. Add health insurance reimbursement up to $200 and a Chautauqua gate pass valued at $3,315.
The play must have had no full productions, run no more than two hours, and use no more than five actors. The playwright's money is modest next to the director's, so the case for applying is the time and the production context at Chautauqua, not the stipend. Find your director now. The page still shows 2026 cohort dates, so confirm the 2027 schedule before you commit a summer to it.
Craigardan — Summer Residency
Deadline: December 15, 2026
Website: https://www.craigardan.org/apply
$25 fee · $750 per week after an automatic scholarship · Elizabethtown, NY
Playwriting is a listed discipline. Two weeks to three months in the Adirondacks in a private cabin or apartment, with some meals and weekly family meals. Open worldwide, collaborative applications accepted, roughly 70 accepted from about 400 applicants.
The money works differently here and it is worth understanding. Full cost is $2,300 a week. Every accepted applicant receives a $1,550 weekly scholarship, so the number you actually pay is $750 a week. There is no stipend. A four-week stay costs you $3,000 plus travel. Craigardan also runs a separate internship call on the same deadline.
Yaddo — Winter Cycle
Deadline: December 20, 11:59 p.m. Eastern. Portal opens November 1.
Website: https://yaddo.org/apply/
$35 fee · Room, board, and studio provided · Saratoga Springs, NY
The winter cycle covers residencies starting in May and running through March of the following year. Two weeks to two months, with room, board, and a studio provided at no cost. Yaddo offers what it calls modest access grants to offset the costs of accepting an invitation, which is the mechanism to ask about if travel is what would stop you from saying yes. The application fee is $35 and non-refundable.
Two eligibility rules disqualify people every year. You cannot be enrolled in any graduate or undergraduate program or completing an academic degree. And you may apply only once every other calendar year, so a rejection last winter means sitting this one out. Notification comes in mid-March. Note that Yaddo prints December 20 as a standing deadline without naming the year.
Script Pipeline — Screenwriting Contest and TV Writing Contest
Deadline: December 30, 2026, pre-registration tier
Website: https://scriptpipeline.com/contest/screenwriting-contest and https://scriptpipeline.com/contest/tv-writing-contest
$50 at this tier · $20,000 to the winner, $1,000 to each of five finalists
Another pricing tier rather than a real deadline. Both contests close May 31, 2027, and the fee climbs from $50 in December to $75 at the end. If you have a finished script and you know you are entering, locking in December saves $25 per contest.
Twenty thousand dollars to the winner of each and $1,000 to each of five finalists, plus industry introductions, development assistance, script reviews, and long-term circulation. Feature scripts run 80 to 120 pages preferred. The TV contest takes original pilots or unproduced independent series scripts and allows co-writers. Applicants must be 18 or older, and Script Pipeline winners, runners-up, and finalists since 2025 are ineligible. Scripts cannot have been produced in full. TV results roll out from July through August 12, 2027.
EMERGENCY & MEDICAL FUNDS
Dramatists Guild Foundation — Crisis Relief and Bridge Grants
Deadline: Rolling through December 14, 2026. The 2027 cycle opens January 4.
Website: https://dgf.org/crisis-relief-grants/ and https://dgf.org/bridge-grants/
Bridge Grants $500 · Crisis Relief amount not published · No fee · Theatre writers only
Mark December 14 whether or not you need it. DGF's grantmaking closes for three weeks at the end of the year, and the gap between December 14 and January 4 is the single most dangerous stretch on this calendar for anyone whose emergency happens over the holidays. If you are already in trouble in early December, apply before the 14th rather than waiting to build a better case.
DGF runs the two funds built specifically for our field. Crisis Relief Grants respond to a recent, unexpected, substantially disruptive emergency: natural disaster, accident, injury, illness, eviction, unsafe housing, domestic violence, legal emergency. Bridge Grants are a flat $500 for non-emergency gaps, meaning utility bills, medication, childcare during a production or residency, or the stretch between paying gigs. Neither covers student debt, credit card debt, taxes, or production expenses. Crisis Relief award amounts are not published.
Eligibility is the same for both. You must be a theatre writer aged 18 or over, meaning playwright, composer, lyricist, or librettist for live performance. You must live and work in the US or a US territory. You must have less than $15,000 in combined bank accounts, and DGF counts PayPal and Venmo. And you must meet three of seven criteria establishing you as a working dramatist, a list that includes two or more completed full-length works for the American theater in the past ten years.
Applications go through Submittable and determinations typically come within a month. First-time applicants are prioritized, repeat applicants from the past twelve months are generally not funded, and the Bridge Grant is a one-time award per person. Since 2020 DGF has granted more than $4 million to theatre writers across 44 states. Reach the grants office at grants@dgf.org or (212) 391-8384 x1007.
Foundation for Contemporary Arts — Emergency Grants
Deadline: Rolling, year-round. Apply 8 to 10 weeks before your project date.
Website: https://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/grants/emergency-grants/guidelines/
$500 to $3,000 · Average grant $2,200 · No fee · Three-year wait before reapplying
Read the name carefully, because this is not a personal hardship fund and the guidelines expressly exclude basic living expenses: rent, food, childcare. FCA Emergency Grants pay for the confirmed public presentation of completed experimental work: performances, exhibitions, screenings, readings, installations. Eligible costs include artists' fees, airfare, accommodations, materials, shipping, and fabrication. FCA receives about 100 applications a month and makes 15 to 20 grants. Applicants name their own amount within the range.
You must live in the US or a US territory with a valid US Tax ID, you must have a confirmed opportunity with specific dates already on the calendar at an artist-run or non-commercial space, and you cannot be enrolled in a degree-granting program. Individual artists and representatives of collectives qualify. Curators, producers, and organizations do not. Work-in-progress showings, commercial venues, educational programming, conferences, workshops, and competitions are all ineligible.
The panel reads your work sample and project description to judge whether your practice fits FCA's experimental mission, so send the boldest thing you have made. Apply eight to ten weeks out and no earlier than ten. Applications submitted less than six weeks before the project date may not get a decision before opening night. Recipients wait three years to apply again.
Authors League Fund
Deadline: Rolling. Applications reopened September 8, 2026.
Website: https://authorsleaguefund.org/apply/
Non-taxable grants, not loans · No fee · Playwrights and librettists explicitly eligible
The Fund was closed for part of the summer and reopened September 8, so confirm the portal is live before you assemble documents. Playwrights are named. The Fund supports dramatists whose full-length plays have been produced in mid-size or large theaters or published by established dramatic presses, and as of 2024 it extended the same standard to librettists and book writers of musicals and operas. Support arrives as a non-taxable charitable grant. It is structured as a no-strings loan and repayment is not required.
The Fund exists for illness, medical bills, eviction, and lost income, and describes its assistance as modest and temporary. No dollar range is published. It prioritizes mid-career and late-career writers, older writers, and those with medical needs, with limited early-career support except for medical emergencies, eviction, or child support. Support cannot be used for professional expenses: not writing time, not equipment, not production costs.
Three ways to apply: online through Formstack, by email with a Word document attached, or by mail to the Fund's Brooklyn office at 155 Water Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Recipients may reapply after twelve months. A Crisis Advice Guide is posted on the site. Phone (212) 268-1208.
Entertainment Community Fund
Deadline: Rolling
Website: https://entertainmentcommunity.org/am-i-eligible-help
Emergency financial assistance · No fee · Call before you apply
Correction and a caution. Formerly The Actors Fund, and actorsfund.org now redirects here, so there is no separate Actors Fund to apply to. More importantly: the Fund's eligibility page names theater, film, television, radio, music, dance, opera, and circus as covered industries, and writers and playwrights are not listed among the qualifying professions. A playwright with documented income from other theatre work may qualify on that basis. A playwright whose income is writing income alone should call a regional office before spending a week assembling the file.
The earnings test is the hard part regardless. General applicants need documented professional earnings for five consecutive years, 2022 through 2026, with at least three of those years at $10,000 or more. Applicants aged 60 and over need 20 years of performing arts income with at least ten years at $5,000 or more. Freelance dancers need five consecutive years with three at $5,000 or more.
Assistance covers essential living expenses, health care, housing, and utilities, specifically to prevent eviction or a service shutoff, with no published maximum. Every application is reviewed by a social worker who will also connect you to public benefits and other resources. Applicants must show they cannot cover the expense through personal resources, community resources, or current work. Other programs include the Entertainment Assistance Program, funeral and burial assistance, financial wellness and tax help, insurance counseling, and the Conrad Cantzen Shoe Fund. Portal at portal.entertainmentcommunity.org. Phones: 800.221.7303 East, 312.372.0989 Chicago, 888.825.0911 Los Angeles. The insurance counseling alone is worth a call for any writer navigating marketplace coverage between contracts, and it costs nothing.
Max's Kansas City Project — Emergency Grants
Deadline: Rolling
Website: https://maxskansascity.org/emergency-grants/
$500 to $1,000, one time · No fee · New York State residents · Paid directly to creditors
One-time grants of $500 to $1,000 for self-employed artists with a steady work history who hit a temporary setback. The fund covers housing, medical, and legal costs only. Payments go directly to your creditors rather than to you. Theatre artists are not named explicitly and are not excluded.
The application is old-fashioned and heavy and everything goes by mail. No email. You need a personal letter explaining the crisis, five to ten work samples, awards and reviews, three character references with addresses and phone numbers, and one referral letter from a colleague or patron who has known your work at least three years. Then the financial file: bank statements, rent or mortgage statements, utility and phone bills, loan statements, credit and debit card statements, plus income verification. Incomplete applications are not considered. Applicants must be New York State residents, with exceptions for people affiliated with Max's Kansas City. Mail to PO Box 4431, Kingston, NY 12402. Phone 845-481-3416. Build this packet on a good day and keep a copy, because reassembling it during a crisis is close to impossible.
Puffin Foundation
Deadline: Rolling. Theater and film categories reopened September 14, 2026.
Website: https://puffinfoundation.org
Maximum $3,500 · No fee
Small project grants to artists whose work might otherwise go unfunded, with theater as a standing category. Maximum award $3,500. The Foundation excludes travel, education costs, and book writing, so frame the request around production and presentation.
JOBS — THEATRE, LITERARY & ACADEMIC
Space Steward / Curator (Part-Time, Live-In) — Portal@427, West Harlem
Deadline: October 4, 2026
Website: No public posting found. Contact board member Jael Sanchez at sanchezjael.34@gmail.com.
$45,000 a year, part-time · Rent-free lodging in a Harlem brownstone · Flexible start date
A new nonprofit and community space in a historic West Harlem brownstone needs someone to live in it and run it. The steward cares for the building and coordinates artist and activist residencies, public programming, and community relationships. The organization describes itself as sitting where art, activism, healing, and community meet, and it is looking for people from arts, cultural organizing, social justice work, artist residencies, and Harlem-based networks.
Do the math on this one. Forty-five thousand dollars for part-time work plus free Manhattan housing is worth more than most full-time literary jobs on this list once you price the rent. For a playwright who can program a reading series, host residents, and still write in the other half of the week, this is a rare setup. It is also a brand-new organization with no public job posting that we could find, so ask about hours, reporting structure, and the board before you give up an apartment. The two published dates contradict each other. Treat October 4 as the deadline and confirm by email.
Assistant Professor of Dramaturgy and Theatre History — American University
Deadline: Review begins October 5, 2026, open until filled
Website: https://american.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/AU/job/Main-Campus-Washington-DC/Assistant-Professor_R4439
Tenure-track · $95,000 to $100,000 · Washington, DC
Still live and re-listed as of September 1. Tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Performing Arts with an August 1, 2027 start. The department is explicitly open to both scholars and practitioners, which matters for playwrights who built a dramaturgy practice inside professional theatres rather than through a PhD. Required qualifications are an advanced degree in Theatre or Performance Studies, expertise in dramaturgy and theatre history, and a record of university teaching.
The application is unusually short for a tenure-track line: a CV, a letter of interest, and one sample syllabus. Three documents. Four courses a year, with course development possible in playwriting, directing, producing, and theatre and AI. Contact Richard Streeks at streeks@american.edu or 202-885-3422.
Tenure-Track Faculty in Dramatic Literature and History — College of the Holy Cross
Deadline: October 15, 2026 for full consideration
$102,500 to $114,500 · Worcester, MA · Assistant or untenured Associate
The best-paying tenure-track humanities line on the board this fall and it wants a director as well as a scholar. PhD required by the appointment start in August 2027, with specialization in theatre history and dramatic literature and a secondary specialization in non-Western, diasporic, or underrepresented theatre cultures. Teaching and directing experience both required.
A 3-2 load that includes production directing, start-up funds, and a one-course reduction in year one. Materials through Interfolio: cover letter, CV, transcripts, teaching philosophy, and three confidential letters. Give your recommenders four weeks.
Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of Playwriting — Villanova University
Deadline: Applicant review begins October 23, 2026
Website: https://jobs.villanova.edu/postings/36362
Tenure-track · 3-2 load · Salary not posted · Villanova, PA · Starts fall 2027
A tenure line titled Playwriting, which is the thing this section exists to find. Villanova's Department of Theatre wants a scholar-artist with an active creative or research agenda, an established record of professional production, at least three years of university teaching, and a terminal degree, which is required. Graduate-level teaching experience is preferred. The job covers the graduate MA program and undergraduate courses, capstone mentoring, work with Villanova Theatre's season, and a hand in curriculum and career advising.
The list of secondary areas is long and it is the real invitation: screenwriting or game writing, new play development, ensemble-created theatre, verbatim theatre, dramaturgy, pedagogy, theatre for social change, gender and sexuality studies, Black, Latine, and LGBTQIA+ theatre, and African and Asian diaspora work. Pick the one or two you can prove with production and syllabi and lead with them. Include three references, who will be contacted later. The work sample is formally due at the interview stage, but the department encourages uploading it under "Writing Sample/Publications" now, so do. You also write a statement on Villanova's mission and Enduring Commitments; the mission text is at https://www1.villanova.edu/university/president/about-university.html. Villanova's job portal blocks automated reading, so the posting was confirmed live through a job-board mirror rather than on Villanova's own page. Open it in a browser before you apply.
Associate Professor with Tenure in Screenwriting — University of Michigan
Deadline: October 30, 2026. Review begins November 1.
Website: https://apply.interfolio.com/192299
Salary commensurate with experience · Ann Arbor, MI · Start August 25, 2027
A senior hire in the Department of Film, Television, and Media, and the qualifications tell you exactly who they want: MFA or equivalent, a strong record of produced and optioned work, extensive university teaching, and demonstrated program leadership and fundraising. This is a job for a working screenwriter with a career behind them, not an entry-level line.
Materials are a cover letter, CV, teaching philosophy, a creative work sample of no more than 40 pages, teaching evaluations, and three recommenders. Michigan does not post a salary figure, which is worth pushing on at the offer stage.
Artist in Residence, Distinguished Visiting Playwright — Duke University English Department
Deadline: Committee begins deliberations November 1, 2026. Applications received by then are guaranteed full consideration.
Website: https://english.duke.edu/artistinresidencesearch · Portal: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/32636
One-year, non-tenure-track · Salary not posted · Residency in Durham, NC required
Duke wants a playwright this cycle, and says so on the application portal: "a distinguished playwright with a national or international reputation" committed to teaching playwriting to undergraduates. The ideal candidate has produced work, an MFA preferred, and undergraduate teaching experience. The job runs one of two ways: August 1, 2027 to April 30, 2028, or January 1 to December 31, 2028. Beyond teaching, you are expected to take part in the department's public readings and faculty workshops or working groups.
Two discrepancies to know about. Duke's own department page still describes the position as poetry or fiction with a published book required, which appears to be last cycle's text. The Academic Jobs Online listing is the current one and it says playwright. And the AJO header shows a deadline of September 8, 2026, the same day it was posted, which is a placeholder. The operative date is November 1. Materials are a CV, letter of application, evidence of teaching excellence, three letters of reference submitted through AJO, a writing sample of 15 to 25 pages with a synopsis of the excerpted play, and proposed descriptions for two courses. Nominations go to english@duke.edu with "Artist in Residence" in the subject line, so if a colleague should have this job, nominate them.
Assistant Professor of the Practice in Musical Theatre Writing — University of Notre Dame
Deadline: None stated, currently open
Website: https://apply.interfolio.com/188580
Notre Dame, IN · Start August 2027
A rare faculty line specifically in musical theatre writing. MFA in Musical Theatre, Musical Theatre Writing, or Music, or a PhD in Music Theory or Composition, plus professional production credits and college teaching in a liberal arts context. Teaches songwriting, lyric writing, and musical theatre song analysis, with Sibelius, MuseScore, and Logic Pro named. New Works Lab and capstone advising. No salary figure posted, which means ask.
Assistant Professor of Lighting — Boston University School of Theatre
Deadline: November 15, 2026 preferred for first-round interviews, open until filled
Website: https://jobs.chronicle.com/job/38031503/assistant-professor-of-lighting/
$95,000 · Non-tenure-track, 9-month, renewable 3-year contract · Boston, MA
Listed here because $95,000 on a renewable contract at a school with BU's production volume is a strong design job, and because playwrights with design backgrounds exist. MFA in Lighting Design or equivalent professional experience, with Vectorworks, Lightwright, and ETC EOS named. Single PDF with cover letter, CV, teaching statement, a digital portfolio link, and three references. Portal only, no email applications.
Artistic Director — Studio Theatre, Washington, DC
Deadline: None published. Hiring decision expected early 2027, start summer 2027.
Website: https://www.mcaonline.com/searches/artistic-director-studio
$195,000 to $210,000 plus full benefits
Studio Theatre is one of the anchor institutions of contemporary play production in the United States, four theatres under 225 seats on a campus in Washington's 14th Street corridor, roughly 40,000 in annual attendance, more than 350 works across 48 seasons, and approaching its 50th anniversary. The posted range is at the top of what regional artistic directorships pay, with medical, dental, vision, a 401(k) with match, long-term disability, life insurance, FSA, and commuter benefits.
For a playwright moving into leadership, this is the rarer kind of artistic directorship: an institution already committed to living writers, so the job is executing a new play mandate rather than arguing for one. Management Consultants for the Arts is running the search, which means a slower and more formal process, and it also means your materials get read by people whose job is to read them. Contact cwall@mcaonline.com.
Artistic Director — Syracuse Stage
Deadline: None published. Posted July 7, 2026, currently open.
Website: https://www.mcaonline.com/searches/artistic-director-syracuse-stage
Starting at $180,000 plus full benefits · Syracuse, NY
A LORT house with a resident season, roughly 60,000 patrons a year, an independent 501(c)(3) with a long partnership with Syracuse University's Department of Drama. The artistic director shares organizational leadership with Managing Director Carly DiFulvio Allen and owns creative direction: season composition, new play commissioning and development, and the theatre's relationship with the surrounding community. Starting at $180,000 with medical, dental, vision, life, a 403(b), and PTO. "Starting at" is negotiable upward.
Two major artistic directorships at contemporary-work houses are open simultaneously, which matters for a second reason: new artistic directors reshape literary and artistic staff within their first two seasons. Watch both institutions through 2027 for the associate-level postings that follow.
Curator of the Tobin Theatre Arts Collection — McNay Art Museum
Deadline: None stated. Posted July 14, 2026.
Website: https://lmda.org/news/curator-of-the-tobin-theatre-arts-collection-mcnay-art-museum/
$75,000 to $80,000 · San Antonio, TX
Stewardship of five hundred years of theatrical design at the intersection of fine art and theatre: collection management, cataloguing, exhibitions, and ambassadorship to the national theatre community. An unusual job for someone with a design or dramaturgy background who wants to work with objects and history rather than productions. Search #23201 via dsgco.com.
