Now Accepting Submissions
to the 12/13
Woodward/Newman Drama Award

Submissions Due: March 1, 2012


Woodward/Newman Drama Award

The BPP has begun accepting submissions for the 2012-13 Woodward/Newman Drama Award. Submissions are due by March 1, 2012. The top 10 finalists will be announced at the end of May with the winner announced in June 2012.

The Woodward/Newman Drama Award is an exclusive honor offered by Bloomington Playwrights Project, sponsored by the Newman's Own Foundation, remembering the many great dramas Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman performed in together. It presents the best unpublished full-length drama of the year with a prize of $3,000, a full production as part of the BPP's 2012-13 Mainstage season and travel expenses up to $300.

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION
(subject to change):

1.  "Full-length" plays will have a complete running time of between 1 hour 15 minutes (75 minutes) to 2 hours 15 minutes (135 minutes).

2.  Plays submitted must be unpublished at the time of submission. Plays that have received developmental readings, workshop productions, or productions at small theatre companies are acceptable. No scripts with previous productions at major regional theaters will be accepted. Once entered, subsequent activity does not change the acceptability of the script.

3.  Each submission must include a synopsis (1 page or less) including the cast size. A separate page should include a brief bio of the playwright, and production/development history if applicable.

4.  Each submission must include a cover letter with contact information and a $10.00 reader fee. Agent submissions require no fee. The fee will be waived for Dramatist Guild members with an enclosed photocopy of a membership card. The BPP only accepts U.S. checks or money orders (Make check payable to "BPP").  No international checks or money orders will be accepted.  If submitting internationally or if you want to avoid paying by check, pay online with your credit card here:


Make sure to note with your submission that you have paid the reader fee online.

5.  It is preferable for musicals to include a demo CD. The complete score is not necessary but may be included. All plays are read by BPP's literary personnel led by and including the Literary Manager and Artistic Director.

6.  We do not accept email submissions. Scripts will not be returned.

7.  The BPP reserves the right not to name a winner and/or name a winner but not commit to a reading or production. These instances are rare but can and do occur.

8.  Send to:
Woodward/Newman Drama Award
Bloomington Playwrights Project
107 W. 9th Street
Bloomington, IN 47404

9.  Scripts must be postmarked by March 1, 2012, and received no later than March 10, 2012. We are not responsible for postal delays, and recommend you not choose to send Media Mail unless you are submitting several weeks in advance.

10.  For further information, write BPP, Attn: Literary Manager, 107 W. 9th Street, Bloomington, IN 47404. For faster replies, please email us at literarymanager@newplays.org.

 

Announcing the winner of the 11/12 Woodward/Newman Drama Award

Three Views of the Same Object by Henry Murray

The Bloomington Playwrights Project is proud to announce the recipient of the 11/12 Season's Woodward/Newman Drama Award, Three Views of the Same Object by Henry Murray.

The play touchingly tells the story of an elderly couple with a suicide pact... their agreement to end it all "before they lose control of their lives."  How do you know when the right moment presents itself? What if one is ready to go and the other isn't.  Multiple actors portray the same husband and wife as we see three simultaneous views of how this pact will play out.

"I selected Three Views of the Same Object as the best of hundreds of dramas from all over the globe because it exemplifies both the current value of theatre and the art form’s future potential," explains Producing Artistic Director Chad Rabinovitz.

"Its unique theatricality combined with masterful language brings two characters together (and apart) in such an engaging way that I’ve not seen in the countless plays that have come across my desk in the past few years.  Henry Murray brings an original look to an unquestionably powerful subject that is certain to move audiences of all kinds."

Three Views of the Same Object began with a real incident when Murray stopped to help an elderly woman who had fallen beside her curbside mailbox. As he walked her to her house, the front door opened and her husband appeared in a wheelchair, trapped by the threshold. She called out, "Honey, I fell down. And can you believe it, I'm not even drunk."

Three Views is about aging in America, enduring love, and the choices we make that determine our fate.

The Woodward/Newman Drama Award is an exclusive honor offered by Bloomington Playwrights Project, sponsored by Newman’s Own Foundation, remembering the many great dramas Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman performed in together.  Playwright Henry Murray will be awarded with a prize of $3,000 and a full production as part of the BPP’s 2011-12 Mainstage season.

Chosen out of 350 submissions from across the globe, this play stood out as the best of the best.  The BPP asked Murray about his reaction to winning the first ever Woodward/Newman Drama Award.

"I was both thrilled and humbled to learn I had won this award," says Murray. "I first saw Ms. Woodward's work in The Three Faces of Eve at a drive-in movie in rural Virginia and experienced my first case of being star-struck."


Henry Murray (Playwright) is the author of numerous poems and stories, a novel, four full-length plays and a number of short plays including Down For The Count, a finalist for The Heideman Award at The Actors Theatre of Louisville. Henry’s play, Treefall, was named one of the ten best plays of 2009 by the LA Weekly and is published and available from Dramatists Play Service. Henry’s play Monkey Adored, which received a reading at the Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage Festival and a week-long workshop at DC’s The Inkwell, is scheduled for production at Rogue Machine Theatre in September of 2011. Henry is a member of the Actors Studio West Playwrights Unit, The Dramatist Guild of America, The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights and is Dramaturge at Rogue Machine Theatre.

11/12 Woodward/Newman Drama Finalists

Provenance by Daniel J. Weber
In Kings and Fools by Kevin Daly
October 1962 by D.W. Gregory
Carried by the Current by Nicola Pearson
The Wind Farmer by Dan O’Neil
Mud Lotus by Chris White
in a word by Lauren Yee
Life is Mostly Straws by Richard Manley (richardmanleyplaywright.com)
Comes a Faery by James McLindon

Woodward/Newman Drama Award Winners

2010/2011 - Miles Away by Christine Whitley
2011/2012 - Three Views of the Same Object by Henry Murray