2010 Call for Submissions
Between March 1st and March 21st, 2010, The Inkwell invites early-career playwrights across the country to submit their new plays for consideration as part our second national call for submissions.
We will be selecting plays to explore through a sustained, collaboration that includes:
- intensive dramaturgical support
- opportunities to participate in master classes and workshops
- mentoring and networking opportunities with other playwrights and playmakers
- intensive rehearsals with actors, directors, and dramaturgs leading to staged readings
- input from designers on how set, costume, sound, and other stage elements serve a play
As we work with playwrights over a period of a year to 18 months, we will choose a few plays for fully staged, bare bones Inkubator Productions. We will provide modest stipends to all playwrights we collaborate with and some additional funds for travel.
BEFORE SUBMITTING YOUR PLAY, PLEASE READ ALL OF THE FOLLOWING:
- a list of ELIGIBILITY requirements
- a description of The Inkwell AESTHETIC
- an overview of the PLAY REVIEW PROCESS
- the criteria The Inkwell will use to EVALUATE YOUR PLAY
SUBMIT YOUR PLAY BY COMPLETING OUR ONLINE SUBMISSIONS FORM.
We will contact selected playwrights in the coming months. Email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you have any questions about this process.
Thank you for submitting your play. We are excited to read it.
The Inkwell will only consider plays that meet the following requirements:
- Plays that are full-length. We will not consider any one-act plays. WE WILL CONSIDER MUSICALS.
- Plays that have not received a full production. A full production includes any public event centering on the script that involved a director, actors, and design elements. The Inkwell considers staged readings and academic productions exceptions to this rule.
- Plays that are submitted within the submission period of March 1st through March 21st.
Drafts of plays must be submitted as either Microsoft Word of PDF files.
If you are submitting a musical, please follow the directions on our online submissions form for uploading your script, for sending us your book, and/or for sending a recording of the music.
We will only accept one play (or musical) from each playwright.
The Inkwell WILL NOT consider plays without a complete online submission form.
The Inkwell envisions a new phase in American Theater where playwrights, playmakers, and playgoers are collaborating here in Washington, DC to create the most innovative and thought-provoking plays in the country.
For The Inkwell, that means we want to work with playwrights who:
- seek a sustained and open collaboration with The Inkwell’s playmakers, playgoers, and playwrights
- create impossible worlds that push past the boundaries of Theatre As We Know It
- spin yarns in their own way, without regard to what is popular, producible or profitable
and we are developing and producing plays that:
- pulse with a unique internal and vital rhythm - a heartbeat driven by twists and trysts between words, sentences, conversations
- demand imaginative complicity and erupt into spectacle
- explode viscerally and psychologically off the page
We strongly suggest that you send us that play that you believe have stretched your skills as a plawright...a play where you have experimented with language, form, and theatricality...where you explore the voice and journey of characters rarely seen in theater.
It might be helpful to read about the plays we selected to explore as part of the 2009 Inkubator Festival. Check out the overview of the festival and Inkblog, a chronicle of our events, especially the entries that describe our showcase readings.
THE INKWELL PLAY REVIEW PROCESS
The Inkwell is proud to say that we read all plays submitted that meet the eligibility requirements. We recruit and train a corps of more than 30 readers to help us with the task. Each reader evaluates plays based on six criteria:
- plot and story
- structure
- character
- theatricality
- language and dialogue
- playwright responses to the submission form
Read on to learn how we define and evaluate these criteria.
There are approximately three rounds of review to select plays. Those plays that are selected in the final round are read and evaluated by at least five readers.
We make our final selection of plays based on interviews with playwrights. It's important to keep in mind that we are as interested in collaborating with playwrights as we are in exploring plays.
It takes us up to five months to make our selections.
CRITERIA WE USE TO EVALUATE PLAYS
We evaluate plays based on six criteria.
PLOT AND STORY
For The Inkwell, the words plot and story convey different meanings.
Plot refers to the events of the play. Whether the events of the play unfold chronologically or if they have been sliced, diced, and reordered, the plot tells us what happened — from beginning to end. An example of plot would be: “The queen died, and the king died.”
Story gives the plot meaning and interest through conflict, action, character, and circumstances. Story piques our curiosity and hooks us emotionally. Story reveals character transformation. Ultimately, story keeps us turning pages. An example of story: “The queen died, and then the king died of grief.”
The Inkwell seeks playwrights who tell stories that explode viscerally and psychologically off the page.
Evaluating story and plot in groundbreaking pieces can be tough, so the most important question our readers ask themselves is: Do I want to keep reading?
STRUCTURE
For The Inkwell, structure refers to the architecture of the play, the way in which various elements — reveals of character’s objectives, conflict between characters, the use of theatricality, the setting of mood, the story, and plot — fit together.
Since The Inkwell is looking for plays that take risks, we will most likely rate a play that experiments with structure a bit higher. That said, if any one piece of structure is weak, the whole thing can fall apart. For example, if the play is full of interesting, theatrical moments, but they confuse the plot, or if we are never able to empathize with characters, then there is a structural issue. Likewise, if the characters are really compelling, but they are put in situations where there is no conflict, then there is a problem with the structure.
The question our readers ask about structure is this: Do I understand the play’s emotional, intellectual, and/or theatrical logic, and is it compelling?
CHARACTER
For The Inkwell, character is separated from language or dialogue. The two are inextricably linked, but we evaluate how each character develops over the play and how relationships between characters evolve or disintegrate. The Inkwell is looking for plays with complex characters — especially those that we don’t often see in theater, or those that illuminate an archetypal character in a new way — and that interact with each other in surprising and compelling ways.
The central question our readers ask about character is: Am I compelled to invest in complex, carefully drawn characters, their journey, and the relationships between characters throughout the play?
THEATRICALITY
For The Inkwell, theatricality refers to the way in which the playwright creates a world in his/her play that is extraordinary, a world that may have familiar elements, but one that we could not find in our everyday existence. We expect playwrights to use stagecraft (light, sound, set pieces, projections, costume, masks, puppets, film, fire, fog, etc.) to thrill the audience and place them firmly in that world.
The Inkwell welcomes creativity in using stagecraft and spectacle, because we are looking for plays that push the boundaries of theatre as we know it to create impossible worlds. This can mean many things; it could mean a world where the impossible happens (Godzilla tears down an apartment building) or where our own world is tweaked in a surprising and evocative way (a wall of an apartment is stained with tears).
The question that our readers ask about theatricality is this: Does this play push the boundaries of stagecraft and/or theatricality to immerse me in a world that I would find nowhere else?
LANGUAGE AND DIALOGUE
For The Inkwell, attention to language is an essential characteristic of a compelling play. We are looking for playwrights who pay attention to word choice, who put together phrases that are surprising and with a unique rhythm.
However, language is not divorced from dialogue or the emotional conflict of the play. The language of the play, however beautiful or unusual, should not stop forward motion. Moreover, the language and dialogue should help illuminate and authenticate characters’ voices.
The questions our readers ask about language and dialogue are: Do I find the language of the play creates a unique, forward-moving rhythm? Do I find that the language gives voice to strong, complex characters caught in absorbing conflict?
PLAYRIGHT RESPONSE TO THE SUBMISSION FORM
For The Inkwell, the qualities of the playwright are as important as the play. We are investing in both. So it is important that playwrights take the time to provide thoughtful answers to the questions posed in the submissions form.
In reviewing the play submission form, the question our readers ask is this: Is this a playwright that I believe is open, honest, self-aware, and collaborative, someone I would want to work with for at least a year to develop a new play?