Seeking member proposals for Steinberg/ATCA and Osborn

Seeking member proposals for Steinberg/ATCA and Osborn

With just a month to go in 2012, the odds are you’ve already seen what you might propose for the playwriting awards ATCA adjudicates. (If you need a refresher, click to read about the $40,000 Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award or $1,000 M. Elizabeth Osborn Award for an emerging playwright.) Submissions go to new play award chair Bill Hirschman at muckrayk@aol.com or 954-478-1123. For the criteria, limitations and process involved …  

We have a strong committee eagerly awaiting the scripts that you recommend. This is one of the most prominent things that ATCA does each year — the top prize for the Steinberg/ATCA Award is $25,000. Submission suggestions should go to Bill Hirschman at muckrayk@aol.com or 954-478-1123.  

To recommend a play for either the Steinberg or Osborn, please contact Bill with the title and the playwright, the theater where it was produced, dates for the production (if you have them) and contacts for the theater, which will be asked to provide script copies for members of the New Play Committee. For either award, an eligible play must have received its first full professional production (not a student production, nor a staged reading) in 2012 at a theater outside the five boroughs of New York City. It can have received multiple productions during the year (such as productions affiliated with the National New Play Network), but it can not have been produced in New York City in this calendar year. The committee will consider adaptations of other works, translations and musicals, but such candidates face a steep uphill battle.

Keep in mind that this is a playwriting award, not a production award. We all have seen mediocre scripts elevated by an imaginative production and vice versa. The bar has been set high. While we want to cast as broad a net as possible and consider every exemplary candidate, this is not a contest about having laughed a little or cried a bit or just had a good time. We are looking for plays with strong writing and something to say. But if you’re in doubt, submit the title to Bill. We’d rather the committee read every potential play than miss an obvious choice because someone was reluctant to nominate it.