The Play Submissions Helper recently sat down with Greg Kanyicska, a member of the board of directors of the Nylon Fusion Theatre Company. Nylon is based out of NYC, and accepts play submissions for its quarterly 10-Minute playwriting festivals, entitled “This Round’s On Us.” Greg was kind enough to share some insights about what he and his team look for when reviewing and choosing among play submissions:
To give you some background about our festivals, each one is linked to a major holiday: Valentine’s Day, April Fools’ Day, Independence Day, or Halloween. We look for plays approximately 10-minutes in length either directly or indirectly linked to each holiday or some related themes–respectively: love/chocolate, mischief/deceit/ surprise, independence/dependence/ patriotism, fear/disguises. While the writer should be concerned with the holiday-based theme in their submissions, the categories are fairly broad and there is no need to be overt and obvious in working them into the script.
The first cut, quite honestly, is made based on page length. Please, don’t send us any 1-2 page plays or anything over 20 pages. Either expand or cut what you have to get close to the 10 minute mark.
If your play meets the length criteria, the most important thing we look for is quality. That means more than just good writing. It has to be writing that actually works on stage. If you close your eyes, can you picture actors saying the words you have on the page? If so, send in your script and you may get to see those words performed. But if it sounds too novelistic or expository, you might be well served if you either edited before submitting, or reworked your play as a short story rather than submitting it to our playwriting festival.
In selecting our plays, we also have practical, technical considerations necessary when staging a smooth-running festival. Although these considerations are guidelines and can almost always be trumped by good writing, ideally each play would feature 2-4 actors and would only have minimal props and costuming. Having to put on 10-plus plays a night, there is little time to change scenery, props and costumes can balloon a production budget, and the dressing room would get pretty crowded if each writer tried to squeeze in a large ensemble into a 10-minute work.
Nylon Fusion Theater Company is currently accepting play submissions for two of their upcoming “This Round’s On Us” playwriting festivals: Valentine’s Day and April Fools’ Days. The deadline for the Valentine’s Day festival is December 23, 2012, and the deadline for the April Fools’s Day festival will be in late January, 2013. For more information about Nylon Fusion Theatre Company, you can visit their website or like them on Facebook.
Author: Dave Berns