New Works Now: Nurturing New Plays for the American Stage
An annual festival of workshops that culminate in public readings, New Works Now is designed to enrich the theater experience of our audiences and artists who are hungry for daring and impactful stories. Post-show responses are valuable to the play development process and have shown that our unique audiences are willing to engage with new work in a collaborative environment. The festival, held each January, has served as a guiding light for our company and has helped rebrand Northern Stage as a bold and visionary theater for our complicated times.
Readings are free and open to the public. Seats are reserved, and we often see full houses, so we recommend calling the Box Office at (802) 296-7000 to reserve seats today.
“How wonderful that Northern Stage is a research and development lab for the next generation of classics!” – Alex Trow, Actor
A Note to Playwrights
Thank you for your interest in Northern Stage and New Works Now. At this time, submissions of full-length plays for Northern Stage’s New Works Now festival are by invitation only. We invite you to introduce us to your work by sending a resume along with a synopsis and a 10-page selection from one of your plays to newworksnow@northernstage.org. We will get in touch if we would like to request a full script copy. The deadline for consideration for New Works Now 2020 is June 15, 2019.
Selections for our January festival are announced in December. Only plays selected (3-4 per year) will be given a workshop/reading and the possible opportunity for further development or a full production. We see more than 100 submissions per year.
Please do not mail physical copies of manuscripts and do not submit on behalf of a playwright without their express permission. Finally, contact Jess (jchayes@northernstage.org) if you have any questions.