National Ten-Minute Play Contest

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The guidelines for the National Ten-Minute Play Contest are changing! Please read the following policies carefully before submitting your play.

Beginning in 2011, we are redirecting the focus of the Contest toward the primary production opportunity for ten-minute plays at Actors Theatre: The Apprentice/Intern Tens. An annual event that takes place in January, the A/I Tens consist of a bill of 8-10 world premiere ten-minute plays, fully produced in Actors’ Victor Jory Theatre and performed by our Apprentice Company of young actors.

As a result of this refocusing and our individual programming needs, Actors Theatre of Louisville and City Theatre of Miami will no longer co-sponsor the National Ten-Minute Play Contest, though each theatre will separately continue its commitment to finding and producing excellent ten-minute plays, and getting to know the work of writers around the country. Playwrights who wish to submit a ten-minute play to be considered for City Theatre’s Summer Shorts Festival should visit www.citytheatre.com for more information.

Plays that were submitted in the last round of the Contest, for the November 1, 2010 deadline, will still be considered by both Actors Theatre of Louisville and City Theatre.

What’s Changing?

Characters in submitted plays should be in the age range 18-28.

Beginning with the next contest (deadline: November 1, 2011), submissions will be limited to the first 500 scripts we receive.

In order to level the playing field, scripts will only be accepted between September 1st and November 1st. Effective immediately, scripts sent outside this window will no longer be accepted. Please do not send your script before September 1!

If your play is received after we’ve hit the 500-script mark, you will be notified.

If you submitted a play before we posted these new guidelines on March 1, 2011, it has been entered into our current contest cycle, whether or not it was submitted by the November 1, 2010 deadline. You will be notified if your play is a finalist in the summer of 2011. This exception applies only to scripts mailed before March 1.

Entries will be acknowledged by postcard in January. Writers whose plays are selected for production will be notified by December 2012.

And, As Ever:

Each playwright may submit only one script—send us your best!

We are unable to accept electronic submissions.

No scripts will be returned.

Each script must be no more than ten pages long. (We start counting pages after the title page and character list, if applicable.)

Previously submitted plays, plays that have received an Equity production, musicals, children’s shows, and any unsolicited longer one-act or full-length plays are not accepted and will not be returned nor receive a response. Plays that have received Equity waiver showcase productions are eligible.

Each manuscript must be typed and individually bound or stapled.

Title page must include the playwright’s name, address, phone number and e-mail address.

The volume of scripts submitted hampers our ability to comment individually on each work, so we do not offer criticism.

All ten-minute plays will be considered for the Heideman Award ($1000)* and production in the Apprentice/Intern Tens, an annual event in the winter.

Playwrights must be citizens or permanent residents of the USA.