Call for Submissions: 24-Hour Playwriting Contest, Pat the Dog Playwright Centre

2011 24-Hour Playwriting Contest

Stock up on coffee and dust off your lucky mug. Pat the Dog Playwright Centre is thrilled to announce we are hosting our third annual 24-hour playwriting contest. This means 30 adrenaline-pumped writers from across Ontario will be hitting the keyboards from 4:00 PM on Friday, September 30, 2011 to 4:00 PM Saturday, October 1, 2010.

All contestants write off-site, so you can write at home, in a coffee shop, on a bus… the location is up to you. There’s no entry fee and no restriction on final script length. All you have to do is write an original play using three secret words — in 24 hours. How easy it that?

Not very. But the rewards could be great. Our winning playwrights are everywhere!

• Last year’s winning script, Receiver of Wreck by Matthew Heiti, received a workshop with Pat the Dog Playwright Centre and is slated for a public presentation in Sudbury this fall. Heiti is also the winner of RBC Tarragon Under 30 National Playwriting Competition and has been appointed Playwright in Residence at Sudbury Theatre Centre for 2011-12.
• Second-place winner, Evan Tsitsias, is completing his participation in Tarragon’s 2010-11 playwright unit, and had a Summerworks’ hit with Strange, Mary Strange, which received 4 Ns and a coveted Critic’s Pick with NOW Magazine.
• Jessica Anderson’s The Gods and Calvin Brewer, not only placed third in our contest and will be part of our upcoming piece/meal performance series, but was first runner-up in the Hamilton Fringe Playwriting Contest (2011) and received an honourable mention in Ottawa Little Theatre’s One-Act Playwriting Competition (2011).  Anderson’s full-length play, My Purple Wig, received the Special Merit Award in Theatre BC’s National Playwriting Contest (2010) and was short-listed for RBC Tarragon’s Under 30 National Playwriting Competition.

Rules & Regulations:

1. The contest is open to anyone living in Ontario, except contest Jurors. Space is limited to the first 30 entrants, accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. To enter, just fill out our online form here.
2. Entrants can work from a page of prepared notes, but all plays are to be original works.
3. The script must include, in some form, the three secret words we select. These words will be emailed to the participants at 4:00 PM on Friday, September 30, 2011.
4. Participants must email their play to the designated email address no later than 4:00 PM on Saturday, October 1, 2011.
5. Scripts must be in electronic format (acceptable extensions include .doc, .docx, rtf, .pdf, or .txt), written in 12 point Arial, Courier or Times Roman, double-spaced between speaking parts, and formatted for 8 1/2” X 11” paper.
6. The title page should contain the title of the play, your name, contact number and email. The play itself must NOT contain your name, but have a header with the play title and page numbers.

Prizes & Notification:

Winners will be announced on our website on Monday, October 4 at 4:00 PM. Prizes will be awarded as follows:

• First place will receive $500, a public staged reading of the winning script and full bragging rights. We’ll also feature you on our website in a Q&A.
• Second place: a reading.
• Third place: a reading.

http://www.patthedog.org/2011/08/22/2011-24-hour-playwriting-contest/