Playwriting Contest
Sixth Annual Festival of New American Plays - January 17-20, 2008
The winner of the 2008 Firehouse Theatre Festival of New American Plays has been announced! The winner of the $1,000 cash prize is Richard Willett, for his script Tiny Bubbles.
Two finalists, selected by a distinguished panel of judges, were chosen from more than 150 scripts received for our playwriting contest from across the country. They were:
Richard Willett, for his script Tiny Bubbles; and Jon Busch, for Pet Shop Days. Both plays were presented on alternating nights during the Firehouse Theatre’s Sixth Annual Festival of New American Plays, Thursday-Sunday, January 17-20. The winning play was chosen by members of the public who attended readings of both plays - a truly democratic event!
About the Winning Plays and Playwrights:
Tiny Bubbles, by Richard Willett: A forty-something gay man must confront his own alcohol consumption when his roommate and chief drinking buddy decides to join AA, with hilarious, touching, and surprising results.
Richard Willett is an accomplished writer whose plays have been presented at theaters across the country, including Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York; the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Public Theater; and the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. Awards and honors include an Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship; a Tennessee Williams Scholarship; and play development grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts. In addition, he has been a finalist in several major screenwriting competitions, and is the author of nine published short stories. Mr. Willett is the co-artistic director of New Directions Theater in New York, and resides in West Hollywood, California.
Pet Shop Days, by Jon Busch: Pete is a genuine animal expert, despite his Mohawk haircut and metal-studded attire. That’s why Mr. Shaw, a loud-mouthed, grizzled New Jerseyan, keeps him around his struggling pet shop. Pete dreams of leaving his dead-end job and becoming a veterinarian, but when Mr. Shaw is threatened with eviction, Pete and his buddies band together to save one of the last independent businesses in town from being taken over by a corporate chain.
Jon Busch has written two full-length plays, and several short plays that have been produced in a variety of small theaters and play festivals around the Boston area. He teaches writing courses at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, and first began developing Pet Shop Days while a graduate student at Boston University. Mr. Busch lives and writes in Beverly, Massachusetts.
About the 2008 Judges : Local screenwriter and Firehouse Board member Megan Holley; esteemed actor and one of our favorites, Bill Patton; and Hollins College MFA in Playwriting faculty, Todd Ristau.
The Seven Semi-finalists:
In addition to Mr. Busch and Mr. Willett, five more works merited the judges’ acclaim:
Matches by Richard Manley
The Persistence of Belief by Bo Wilson
The Cafe Brulot by Jami Brandli
Kingdom of Dust by Stephanie Timm
Retrospective by Walter Thinnes
The seven semi-finalists hail from the states of Virginia, Massachusetts, California, New York, and Washington.
Applause, congratulations, and our thanks to the winners, the semi-finalists, the judges, and all the many, many volunteer readers who took time to ensure that only the very best new American plays come to the Firehouse stage!
In keeping with the Firehouse Theatre’s mission of promoting new work, the Festival of New American Plays began in 2002 as a way to encourage and incubate new plays by established and emerging playwrights in the USA. It has become a grass-roots event with substantial involvement from the community, as hundreds of scripts submitted from all over the country are read by volunteer readers from the area. Each script is read twice (more if it needs a tiebreaker), and scripts with “two thumbs up” are passed on to our expert panel of judges, who then pick two finalists for a four-night showdown at the festival. Members of the festival audience who have seen staged readings of both finalists’ works cast a vote for their favorite, and the winner of the festival is chosen by the public! Festival winners receive cash prizes.
2007 Festival – A Tie!
Our Fifth Annual Festival of New American Plays was a smashing success with a surprise ending. The audience vote, following the final performance on Sunday January 28th, was dead even – the first tie ever in the history of the play festival. Sharing the joint honor of first place are One Fine Day by David Rush from Chicago, Illinois; and Grace by Sharon Sharth of Pasadena, California. Thanks to all who helped out with this year’s festival: judges, readers, actors, directors, front and back of house helpers and of course a big thank you to all the fine playwrights who submitted their work.
2006 Winner Achieves Success in New York!
2006 Firehouse “Festival of New American Plays” Winner Frawley Becker’s play Tiger by the Tail made the great leap from the Firehouse Stage straight to Off Broadway this spring! Tiger by the Tail opened at the Wings Theatre in New York City on March 24th, 2006. Click here to read more about it.
We’re excited to be a part of Frawley’s success, and we wish him all the best!
Get Involved Next Year!
Get in on the act of creating the next new sensation for the stage, and sign up now to be a reader for next year. Readers needed starting Summer 2008.
The Firehouse Theatre Project has already begun taking submissions for its 2008 Playwriting Contest!
Festival Guidelines:
• Full length scripts only.
• Plays must not have been previously produced. Readings are acceptable if no admission was charged and actors read from the script.
• Submissions should be made in standard manuscript form. This means no discs, no e-mails. All author information must be on a title page
separate from the body of the manuscript and no reference to the author is permitted in the body of the script.
• Scripts must be accompanied by a letter of recommendation from a theater company or individual familiar with your work. Letters of recommendation do not need to be specific to the play submitted; they may be general recommendations of the playwrights work. All letters must be received with the script, not under separate cover. Scripts received without a letter will not be considered.
• Entries must be postmarked no later than June 30, 2008.
Due to volume of mail, manuscripts cannot be returned.
• Send submissions to:
Firehouse Theatre Project
6th Festival of New American Plays
1609 W. Broad St.
Richmond, VA 23220
• Two winners receive staged readings and prizes of $1,000 and $500. In the case of a tie, each winner will receive $750.
• Winners will be announced January 1, 2009.