Notre Dame College Performing Arts Programs are seeking unproduced short scripts for its third annual New Play Festival.
This year’s festival theme is “We Are Citizens of the World,” and submissions written by Cuyahoga County playwrights and performing artists will be accepted through August 3. A panel of Notre Dame, community artists and local residents will select finalists by September 23. Those scriptwriters who are chosen will be asked to participate in talkbacks one of the three nights of the performances: Friday, November 18, and Saturday, November 19, both at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, November 20, at 2 p.m., all in Regina Auditorium on the College campus.
As part of the 2022 Notre Dame New Play Festival Nationally recognized and Cuyahoga County-based playwright and screenwriter Eric Coble has been commissioned to write a world premiere short play to premiere at the College. This piece will be presented with two or three additional new works selected for the festival.
Coble is known for the Tony- and Pulitzer-nominated “The Velocity of Autumn,” which premiered on Broadway at the Booth Theatre. His works “Fairfield,” “Southern Rapture,” “Bright Ideas,” “The Dead Guy,” “My Barking Dog,” “A Girl’s Guide to Coffee” and “The Giver” have been produced Off-Broadway. These scripts have been performed at Manhattan Class Company, The Kennedy Center, Playwrights Horizons, Actors Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival, Denver Center Theatre Company, Arena Stage, New York and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, Alliance Theatre, Cleveland Play House, Great Lakes Theater Festival and The Contemporary American Theatre Festival, among others.
He has been honored with an Emmy nomination, the American Alliance for Theatre and Education Distinguished Play Award for Best Adaptation, the Chorpenning Playwriting Award for Body of Work, the AT&T Onstage Award, National Theatre Conference Playwriting Award, National Endowment for the Arts Playwright in Residence Grant, a Theater Communications Group Extended Collaboration Grant, the Cleveland Arts Prize, two Cuyahoga Arts and Culture Fellowships and four Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants.
The College’s New Play Festival is open to all Notre Dame faculty, staff and students as well as all Cuyahoga County residents. This is the third year for the event, which started in 2019. The College did not conduct the festival in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Submissions for the 2022 festival should be emailed to Celeste Cosentino, director of theatre studies, Notre Dame performing arts, at ccosentino@ndc.edu. Format can be PDF, Word document or YouTube link if video footage of a piece is available.
Parameters for submissions include:
- Selected piece should echo/focus on the festival theme “We Are Citizens of the World.”
- Piece selected can be no shorter than 15 minutes and no longer than 30 minutes in length.
- Piece selected will be performed in repertory with 3-4 other pieces each night so minimal setting is preferred.
- Piece can be solo pieces, spoken word, include music and movement as well but must have a written storytelling element.
- Pieces with small/smaller casts preferred due to the nature of the festival and production elements. Productions will be mounted as a minimally produced festival of new works!
- The 2-3 additional pieces selected will receive an honorarium.
The 2022 NDC New Play Festival is underwritten by Cuyahoga Arts & Culture Project Support. Project Support grants promote and encourage the breadth of arts and cultural programming in our community by supporting projects both large and small throughout Cuyahoga County. Details are online at CACGrants.org.
July 2022
About Notre Dame College
Notre Dame College is a private, Catholic, liberal arts college in South Euclid, Ohio, committed to teaching students how to make a good living and live a good life. Founded by the Sisters of Notre Dame in 1922, the College offers bachelor’s degrees in 30 disciplines plus a variety of master’s degrees, certification programs and continuing and professional development programs for adult learners on campus and online. For more information, visit NotreDameCollege.edu.