Pitch Your Play Showcase

The 44th Annual Mid-America Theatre Conference

Click this link for a downloadable PDF of the CFP: 

MATC Playwriting PYP 2024 CFP

Playwriting Symposium:

Playwrights – Pitch Your Play Showcase

Call for Plays

The Playwriting Symposium of the Mid-America Theatre Conference seeks submissions of new, unproduced full-length and one-act plays for the Pitch-Your-Play Program. This is a juried event and the first 40 submissions will be considered. All submissions must be received by Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023.

This call is directed to academic playwrights (faculty members or graduate students) and/or to professional Independent Artists, especially those located within the greater Madison region. The Symposium enthusiastically echoes MATC’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and encourages submissions from playwrights of color and/or from other underrepresented groups. 

The Mid-America Theatre Conference commits to advancing intersectional equity, inclusivity, and diversity; creating a conference that is welcoming and fully accessible; and to disrupting the ongoing damage of white supremacy within MATC and the broader academic and theatrical worlds. As part of this effort, we highly encourage a broad range of submissions by presenters or about theatre of historically disenfranchised and underrepresented populations, particularly those of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. For MATC’s full statement on anti-racism, accessibility, and inclusivity please see our website at http://matc.us. 

MATC prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind, including during all associated meetings, the annual conference sessions, and within publications. In case of questions or concerns, to request specific accommodation, or to report a bias incident, please contact our Equity and Inclusion Officer at equity@matc.us.

The Pitch-Your-Play Showcase offers playwrights of full-length and one-act plays an opportunity to receive critical feedback from a dramaturg along with a staged reading performance of a 10-minute excerpt of the play at the All-Conference Pitch-Your-Play Showcase.  Dramaturgs will be expected to give a short “elevator pitch” for each play at the beginning of its performance. Each selected play will have an assigned Creative Team comprised of a director, dramaturg, and actor(s). All participants assigned to a particular play will receive a digital copy of the final script prior to the start of the conference, and one preliminary conversation—via email, video conference, conference call, etc.—is required of each Creative Team. Participants are therefore expected to reply to emails in a timely fashion to schedule this pre-conference conversation, as well as to make arrangements for the 75-minute, on-site rehearsal. 

Completed scripts must be submitted by January 31, 2024, as the dramaturg is expected to read the script in advance of one pre-conference conversation—via email, video conference, conference call, etc.—with the playwright. 

• Excerpts to be performed at the Pitch-Your-Play Showcase may not exceed ten minutes in length. Please time excerpts prior to submission.
  • A general page estimate for a 10-minute excerpt includes approximately 8-9 pages, although this is clearly not an exact science. Scripts with fast-paced dialogue are often much shorter in time than plays with extensive monologues.
• Please limit excerpts to a maximum of four (4) actors. 
• The full-length script will be made available by request to interested audience members at the showcase, with permission from the playwright. 

 All selected playwrights must register for the conference. Unfortunately, the conference is unable to provide funding to assist with the costs of travel and/or lodging. To request specific conference accommodations, please contact Katya Vrtis, our Acting Accessibility Officer, at access@matc.us. 

All proposals must include:  

• Playwrights are to submit the following three (3) documents: 
  • Document one (1) is a ten-minute sample from the play, saved as .doc, .docx, or PDF file format:
    • The Symposium does not employ anonymous review. Submitted scripts are to bear the title of the play and name of the playwright. 
    • Do not send the entire play.

• Document two (2) is the cover page saved as .doc, .docx, or PDF file format.
  • This document must include the following information

1. title of the play
2. name of the author
3. address, phone number, and email
4. affiliation (e.g. university/college affiliation, theatre company affiliation, or Independent Artist)
5. a brief statement of 250-500 words about the play’s genesis and the playwright’s positionality for telling the story

• Document three (3) includes the following and must be saved as .doc, .docx, or PDF file format:
  • a one-page plot synopsis
  • a one-page statement identifying your goals for a session with a dramaturg

• The ten-page sample must be typewritten using Samuel French or similar guidelines with a Times New Roman 12-point font.

• Only one (1) full-length or one-act play will be considered per playwright. Playwrights who submit multiple plays will not be considered. Plays that have been produced or have received workshops prior to the submission date are not eligible for the Symposium.
  • Playwrights may also submit one (1) ten-minute play to the Dramatists Play Lab (see separate CFP).
  • Playwrights may also apply to act, direct, or serve as a dramaturg or scenographer for another playwright’s work (see separate CFP).

NOTE: Playwrights who do not follow the above guidelines will not be considered. 

The Playwriting Symposium is eager for, and appreciative of, your help in advertising the conference to theatre artists in both academic and professional theatres within the reach of the conference location. We appreciate your help in circulating this call (as well as the symposium’s other calls) widely!

Please submit proposals by Wednesday Nov. 1, 2023 at 11:59pm PST via the online form available here.

Questions can be directed to Nathan Bowman at playwriting@matc.us

Please use “PYP Question” as the subject line.

Please note that no individual may submit to more than two symposia, including the Playwriting Symposium. This limit is put in place to avoid scheduling conflicts and to provide more individuals the opportunity to present.

Visit the MATC website at http://www.matc.us to find individual Calls for Papers for the  All-Conference Panels, Pedagogy Symposium, Playwriting Symposium, Practice/Production Symposium, Theatre History Symposium, Emerging Scholars Panels, Articles-in-Progress and Pitch-Your-Book Workshops.

Please submit proposals by Wednesday, November 1, 2023 at 11:59pm PST via the online form available at https://forms.gle/1xih1NXKiugMxzGV7