2015 Submission Guidelines are HERE!

It’s official!  This year’s festival theme will be Outside the Lines. 

Every year I try to come up with a theme that is not only visually evocative, but which is also relative to the female playwright’s journey… it’s a pretty tall order, if I’m honest, and I can get a bit obsessed with trying to find something that works.

I mulled a lot of possible themes this year, but I kept coming back to the idea that, as female playwrights, we oftentimes find ourselves at the theatrical perimeter production-wise.  I’ve also been thinking a lot about how important it is to flex our creative muscles, to look beyond the pat, the expected, the “easy”, to push through whatever obstacles keep us away from the keys and to just fucking write!

And I also love the image of us as beautifully complex theatricians doing our best to break boundaries.

Outside the Lines as a theme encapsulated all of these thoughts, and hopefully it will inspire an exciting mix of original work for this year’s peer review!

So, without further ado, here are this year’s submission guidelines.  Please read through them completely—especially if you’re new to the ONSTAGE Project—to ensure that your play receives our fullest consideration.

Little Black Dress INK is creating production opportunities for female playwrights through its Female Playwrights ONSTAGE Project; a short-play festival dedicated to producing peer-selected works by women. In addition to contributing to the selection of plays, participating playwrights are able to review and revise their work via online-streaming of play readings, and are encouraged to blog about the process along the way.

Submissions are now being accepted from awesome female playwrights for consideration in this year’s festival! This festival utilizes a peer-review process for evaluating submissions, so please make sure to read over the following guidelines carefully before submitting.

• This year’s festival theme is Outside the Lines. Playwrights are invited to submit short plays and/or monologues written on this theme. In the past we’ve had great success with short scenelets as well (10-minute plays comprised of a couple of scenes, which we can sprinkle throughout the show)

• LBDI strongly suggests you do not submit plays or monologues longer than ten minutes. Keep in mind that in all instances, shorter truly is better. Plays running longer than ten minutes stand very little chance of making it into the festival, as we strive to produce as many playwrights as possible.

• Little Black Dress INK utilizes a peer review process for evaluating plays. By submitting to this fest, you agree to participate in this unique opportunity to help select plays for production.
  • Once our submission window is closed, you will receive a selection of plays to read and score using the LBDI online eval form. You MUST read and submit your evaluations by the required date in order for your play to remain in consideration.
  • Submitted works will be read by other participating playwrights and LBDI artistic personnel. By submitting to the festival, you agree to share your work for review in this process.

• Submission materials must be emailed to LBDI by January 1, 2015 and should include:
  • The following information in the body of your email:
    • Your name
    • The title of your play
    • Your contact information *It is very important that you use a reliable email address as all correspondence will be done via email!
  • A blind PDF of your script – do NOT include your name anywhere on the script!
  • Email materials to submissions@LittleBlackDressINK.org

LBDI will be producing readings of the top scoring plays at eight locations nation-wide. The top eight to ten scoring plays will also move on to full production in Prescott, AZ.

Happy writing!   We can’t wait to read your work!

~Tiffany