THE COLUMBIA GREENE PLAYWRIGHT PROJECT 2014

web site

H2-uh-0

The World's Water---Filtering Out The Dirt

Our nation's fears include terrorism, the economy, climate change and any of a number of societal problems. Unfortunately one issue that barely gets attention, that is not only national but global, is our impending shortage of water.

As highlighted in an August, 2013 article in The New York Times, restrictions on water
use are prevalent throughout the western states. Las Vegas, for example, allows lawn watering only one day a week during the winter. The Colorado river, which supplies water to seven states as well as Mexico, is at all-time low levels and the government is stymied as to what to do about it.

And the problem goes much further than that. According to Smithsonian magazine, "The Mediterranean, southern Africa, parts of South America and Asia—also face fresh-water shortages, perhaps outright crises. In the Andes Mountains of South America, glaciers are melting so quickly that millions of people in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador are expected to lose a major source of fresh water by 2020. In southwestern Australia, which is in the midst of its worst drought in 750 years, fresh water is so scarce the city of Perth is building plants to remove the salt from seawater. More than one billion people around the world now live in water-stressed regions, according to the World Health Organization, a number that is expected to double by 2050, when an estimated nine billion people will inhabit the planet."

Stewart J. Zully and The Columbia-Greene Playwright Project 2014 are seeking plays that deal with and confront this very important topic. Work could pertain to our senseless waste of water, our fascination with bottled water and its negative impact on the environment, terrorism and its potential for catastrophic harm to water supplies, the politics of health versus "big business," the use of water in fracking and its repercussions, and anything, frankly, that addresses this profound issue--"the world's water---filtering out the dirt."

Plays should be full-length, no more than 6 characters. The winning entrant will receive $200 and a public reading in the spring of 2014.

Last year's inaugurating playwright project, YEARS OF SKY, by Barbara Blatner, commemorated the 50th anniversary of JFK's death. The play, selected from a nationwide search, is a highly charged work tracing the impact the assassination had on an inter-racial couple over the span of 30 years. It had previously been work-shopped in New York City at off-Broadway's 59E59 theater complex prior to having its reading at Columbia Greene Community College in April, 2013.

Submissions for THE COLUMBIA GREENE PLAYWRIGHT PROJECT 2014 can be sent to Stewart J. Zully at playwrightworks@aol.com.
Deadline for submissions is November 1, 2013.