Playwriting Contest
Congratulations to this year’s Festival of New American Plays winner – Gino DiIorio of New York, N.Y.!
Audience members at the eighth annual festival’s finale on Monday, Feb. 1, selected Mr. DiIorio’s play, The Jag, as the winner over the other finalist, American Pastime by Mike Folie of Congers, N.Y.
More than 200 scripts were submitted from nearly every state in the country, and festival participants faced no easy decision in selecting a winner, according to organizers.
“Both plays were extremely well-crafted new plays, but each was very different in terms of subject matter and style,” said Kerrigan Sullivan, festival director. “I had several conversations with audience members who were having a very tough time picking who to vote for.”
The Jag is about a father and son who enlist a quirky lesbian to help them fix up an old Jaguar. Mr. DiIorio is an award-winning playwright and teacher whose work has been produced off-Broadway, regionally, and internationally. He is an associate professor of theatre at Clark University where he also serves as theatre program director.
The Firehouse Theatre thanks all submitting playwrights for their participation in the festival, as well as audience members and others who helped make the event a success. Scripts already are being accepted for next year’s festival. Submission guidelines are below.
About the New Plays Festival and Playwriting Contest:
In keeping with the Firehouse Theatre’s mission of promoting new work by American artists, 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 to the Playwriting Contest from all over the country are read by volunteer readers from the Greater-Richmond area. Each script is read twice (more if it needs a tiebreaker), and scripts with “two thumbs up” are passed on for further evaluation to an expert panel of judges, who then pick two finalists for a four-night Festival “showdown.” Members of the festival audience who have seen staged readings of both finalists’ works cast a vote for their favorite play, and the winner of the festival is chosen by the public. Festival winners receive cash prizes.
2011 Festival Submissions Being Accepted Through June 30, 2010
The Firehouse is now accepting submissions for the ninth annual Festival of New American Plays. Please read the Rules for Submissions.
Previous Festivals:
2009: Playwright Evan Guilford-Blake of Atlanta, Ga., was the winner of the 2009 festival for his play An Uncommon Language.
2008: The winner of the Sixth Annual Festival of New American Plays was Richard Willett, for his script Tiny Bubbles.
2007: Fifth Annual Festival’s surprise ending - a Tie! Sharing the joint honor of first place were One Fine Day by David Rush from Chicago, Illinois; and Grace by Sharon Sharth of Pasadena, California.
2006: Fourth Annual Festival winner achieves auccess in New York! Winner Frawley Becker’s play Tiger by the Tail made the great leap from the Firehouse Stage straight to Off Broadway! Tiger by the Tail opened at the Wings Theatre in New York City on March 24th, 2006.
Finally, Firehouse Festival of New American Plays 2009 runner-up and talented playwright Caridad Svich is making a name for herself in New York City, having adapted Isabel Allende’s novel of magical realism, The House of the Spirits, for the stage. Directed by Jose Zayas, Svich’s play opens in New York City on Wednesday, Feb. 18, at Repertorio Espanol’s theater, and runs through June. Yes, Richmond knows talent when she sees it! We predicted it wouldn’t be long before we heard from Svich and winner Evan Guilford-Blake again! Read the full New York Times article, “Staging Latin American Magical Realism, Complete With Songs”.