WE HAVE TRANSITIONED TO ONLINE SUBMISSIONS – PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES CAREFULLY!
10-Minute Plays
Student playwrights are invited to submit plays ranging in length from 4-10 minutes (9 pages or less, 12pt. font), with no restriction on subject matter, style, or intended audience. Please read the following definition and let it be your guide before submitting your ten-minute play. The Kennedy Center defines the ten minute play as follows:
A Ten-Minute Play is a play with at least two characters. It is not a scene, skit or sketch. Structurally, it should have a beginning, middle and end–just as any good one-act or full-length play. Reaching beyond the surface, the text should be enriched with subtext. Since we only have ten minutes to bring the story full circle, a dramatic conflict should be posed as quickly as possible. The resolution of that conflict is what plays out across the remaining pages. The true success of a Ten-Minute Play is reliant on the writer’s ability to bring an audience through the same cathartic/entertaining experience that a good one-act or full-length play accomplishes–i.e., sympathetic characters with recognizable needs encompassed within a resolvable dramatic conflict.
While not wanting to oppress anyone’s creativity, recognize that a Ten-Minute Play will undoubtedly be presented in an evening with other Ten-Minute Plays. Therefore, elaborate settings, multiple characters, extravagant productions values, etc., could conceivably eliminate your play from consideration.
Finally: Do your readers a favor: ten-minutes means eight or nine pages, but certainly no more than ten pages. READ YOUR PLAY OUT LOUD to see how it times out using standard playwrighting format, 12 pt. Times New Roman font.
A panel of readers from outside our region will select up to six scripts from all those submitted. The playwrights whose scripts have been selected for the Region 2 festival will be assigned a faculty director and together will cast the play from onsite festival auditions. These teams will work on the scripts throughout the KCACTF Regional Festival. The festival will culminate in a public, concert reading of the plays. Following the readings, two of the plays will be selected as National Semi-finalists to be considered for an invitation to the National Festival in Washington, D.C. in April.
[Note: While all selected plays will be invited to the workshop and will receive a concert reading, the two that will be selected for consideration at the national level will not be judged by the concert reading but by a reading of the plays, which will have been done by our out-of-region readers prior to festival.]
Students may submit 2 plays in this category. Each script that is submitted must be accompanied by a 10 Minute Play Submission sheet. Please, read the sheet carefully; it contains important submission instructions.
In order to make the evaluation process as easy as possible for our readers, we ask that scripts follow uniform formatting practices. See SCRIPT FORMATTING on the left menu for details.
Scripts are to be submitted to tenreg2@gmail.com. Every effort will be made to handle submissions with care. However, neither KCACTF nor Region II will be responsible for misdirected or lost submissions. Within one week after you have submitted your script, you should receive an email confirming that we have received it. If you do not receive confirmation, please contact Allyson Currin (email address below). We will not begin accepting scripts until October 1, 2011. Please, do not submit before this date.
DEADLINE: All scripts must be received by October 31, 2011.
No application fee is required from students attending schools that have entered either an Associate or Participating entry for the current year’s Regional Festival, productions playing between January 1 and December 1, 2011. A $10.00 script-handling fee is required for any script entered by a student from a school without an Associate or Participating entry in the current year’s festival.
Scripts to Region 2 will be accepted between October 1 and October 31, 2011. Please do not submit scripts prior to October 1 or after October 31. One act and full-length scripts seeking National recognition must be submitted to Gregg Henry by December 1, 2011, at ghenry@kennedy-center.org.
No application fee is required from students attending schools that have entered either an Associate or Participating entry for the current year’s Regional Festival, productions playing between January 1 and December 1, 2011. A $10.00 script-handling fee is required for any script entered by a student from a school without an Associate or Participating entry in the current year’s festival.
Checks should be made out to ACTF MANAGEMENT REGION 2 and mailed to
Elizabeth van den Berg
Chair, Region II
17200 Sandy Knoll Dr.
Olney, MD 20832
For additional information contact
Allyson Currin
KCACTF NNP Vice Chair, Region 2
allycact@yahoo.com