The Reva Shiner Comedy Award presents an unpublished full-length comedy with a cash prize of $1,000, a full production as part of the Bloomington Playwrights Project’s Mainstage season, along with travel reimbursement. We are currently accepting submissions for the 2021-22 Season. Scripts must be submitted by October 31, 2020.
Previous winners have gone on to enjoy productions around the world and to garner additional honors.
Due to COVID-19 precautions, the Bloomington Playwrights Project will have a limited live performance schedule for the 2020/2021 season. Our Reva Shiner Comedy Award winner JUST BETWEEN THE ALL OF US will get it’s full production in April 2021. Our Woodward/Newman drama winner QUEEN BEE will receive it’s full production as part of our 2021/2022 season.
2020-21 Award
Winner
Congratulations to our 2020-21 Reva Shiner Comedy Award WINNER:
Just Between the All of Us – Music by David Christensen, Book and Lyrics by Sarah Ziegler Blair and Kellen Blair
Finalists:
- Chicken and Biscuits by Douglas Lyons
- Book of Maggie by Brendan Bourque-Sheil
- Family Game Night by Peter Kennedy
- Writer’s Block by Christopher Canaan
- Guilty Pleasures by Ken Levine
- Suprema by Phil Keeling
- Bayville High School Parents’ Book Club by Vicki Riba Koestler
Guidelines for Submissions
We are currently accepting submissions for the 2021-22 Reva Shiner Comedy Award. The winner will be announced by June 2021.
- “Full-length” plays should have a complete running time of between 1 hour 15 minutes (75 minutes) to 2 hours 15 minutes (135 minutes).
- Plays submitted must be unpublished at the time of submission.
- Each submission should be sent to BPP via email. Send your email to [email protected]
- Your email should include the following:
- Tell us for which competition you are submitting: Reva Shiner Comedy or the script Woodward Newman Drama
- Tell us your name, phone number, and the name of your Play
- Tell us how you are satisfying the $10 administrative fee
- Agent submitted scripts require no fee.
- If via Dramatist Guild membership, attach a copy of your DG card to the email
- If you have paid via Paypal on our website, indicate your confirmation number and the email address used.
- Paypal is preferred, but if you can’t pay on-line, you may send a check or Money Order, (must be from a US bank). Tell us the check or Money Order number. Make it payable to “BPP” and mail to BPP, 107 W 9th ST, Bloomington, IN 47404
- Attach a PDF file containing your script with the following information included in the following order:
- Title page with author name
- Synopsis (1 page or less)
- Character list/breakdown
- Production history for the play—Include readings and productions
- A brief bio of the playwright,
- Full Script
- Submissions that fail to include all requested information in the order listed will be disqualified from the contest.
- Plays submitted in previous years will be accepted.
- Two separate submissions per playwright per annual competition are allowed as long as each submission has all the required materials.
Pay Reader Fee
Past Winners
- 2019-2020 The Burdens by Matt Schatz
- 2018-2019 Apropos of Nothing by Greg Kalleres
- 2017-2018 Beating a Dead Horse by Jenny Stafford
- 2016-2017 Thirty Day Mourning Period by Hank Greene
- 2015-2016 Billy Witch by Gregory S Moss
- 2014-2015 Kalamazoo by Michelle Kholos Brooks & Kelly Younger
- 2013-2014 Mad Gravity by William Missouri Downs
- 2012-2013 Ampersand by Vincent Delaney
- 2011-2012 I Am Grock by Amanda Rogers
- 2010-2011 Artifice by Anne Flanagan
- 2009-2010 Naked in the Kitchen by Lynda Martens
- 2008-2009 Sans Merci by Johnna Adams
- 2007-2008 Work by Terri Wagener
- 2006-2007 Empty Sky by Sarah Treem
- 2005-2006 The Housewives of Mannheim by Alan Brody
- 2004-2005 The New Jersey Book of the Dead by Jason Grote
- 2003-2004 Maleficia-200: A Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches by Suzanne Wingrove
- 2002-2003 Menace of ‘64 by Mark Ulrich
- 2001-2002 New World Rhapsody by Adam Kraar
- 2000-2001 Outrage by Itamar Moses
- 1999-2000 The Return of Morality by Jamie Pachino
- 1998-1999 Alice in Ireland by Judy Sheehan
- 1997-1998 Medea with Child by Janet Burroway
- 1996-1997 My Sister Calling My Name by Buzz McLaughlin
- 1995-1996 Between Men and Cattle by Richard Kalinoski
- 1994-1995 Tobacco Legacy by Wesley Webb
- 1993-1994 Nobody’s Flood by Glenn Alterman