Each year Region I invites six 10-minute plays and two One-Act plays to be performed at its regional festival as concert readings. Writers work closely with a guest director of their play. Two of the six 10-Minute plays are then selected as National Semi-finalist plays to be considered for an invitation to the national festival in Washington, D.C. Both invited One-Act Plays are considered National Semi-Finalists also for consideration for an invitation to the national Festival in Washington, D.C.
Play submissions are made electronically (PDF or Word Document format). All scripts should be blind. Please remove all playwright identification or school affiliation. Only the title should appear on the title page.
Please follow the link to the KCACTF Region I Submittable page enter your work. Fill out all categories on the submission form.
Attention Student Playwrights: The deadline for all 10-Minute & One-Act play submissions is November 1. No late submissions will be accepted.
*Please examine the Submittable link (10-Minute Plays) for due date information and to submit your work.
Ten-Minute Plays are no more than 10 minutes long. And no more than 10 pages in a standard Times New Roman 12 pt font. You may find Gary Garrison’s guidelines on the national website helpful. They are reprinted below.
If the student’s school has any other associate or participating productions registered, the student is free to submit his or her play. If the school has no registered productions, the student should contact the Region I NPP Chair for submission instructions. The submitted plays will be read by at least three readers from a different region. The top six selected plays will be invited to Region I’s Festival.
Should you be one of the selected playwrights you must be able to attend the festival or your play will be disqualified. Do not submit your play unless you are able to attend.
At the festival, playwrights will work with assigned directors on a public concert reading of their work. All casting and rehearsing of the reading will happen during the festival. Three festival respondents will respond to your play at the festival. Two plays (out of the six) will be chosen at the regional festival to be National Semi-Finalists. Those two plays will then be held in consideration for the National Festival in Washington DC, as potential National Finalists.
“A Ten-Minute Play is a play with at least two characters that is not a scene, skit or sketch. Structurally, it should have a beginning, middle and end–just like 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/entertainment experience that a good one-act or full-length play accomplishes– i.e., sympathetic characters with recognizable needs encompassed within a resolvable dramatic conflict.
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 playwriting format, 12 pt. Times New Roman font.”
*Please examine the Submittable link (One Act Plays) for due date information and to submit your work
A short play is defined as a play of one-act without intermission that, within itself, does not constitute a full evening of theatre; the running time of a one-act play is under 60 minutes, and when typed in standard format, a one-act play is approximately 15-45 (or so) pages in length.
Each entry must have had a period of significant development at the student’s college or university to be eligible. If the student’s school has any other associate or participating productions registered, the student is free to submit his or her play. If the school has no registered productions, the student should contact the Region I NPP Chair for submission instructions. The submitted plays will be read by a panel of readers from a different region. Two of the top choices will be invited to Region I’s Festival. Should you be one of the selected playwrights you must be able to attend the festival or your play will be disqualified. Do not submit your play unless you are able to attend.
The One Act Festival celebrates and supports the achievement of student playwrights. At the festival, playwrights will work with assigned guest directors on a public concert reading of their work. All casting and rehearsing of the reading will happen during the festival. Three festival respondents will respond to your play at the festival. Both plays chosen are also considered National Semi-Finalists from the regional festival. Those two plays will then be held in consideration for the national festival in Washington DC, as potential National Finalists.
For more information on the John Cauble Short Play Award, visit the KCACTF national website and follow this string: www.kcactf.org; Students; Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards; John Cauble Short Play Award
In order to be selected a regional finalist for the KCACTF NATIONAL John Cauble Short Play Award, a one-act must be invited to the regional festival as either a participating full production or for a concert reading. To remain in award contention, the playwright must be able to attend the Region I festival.
All plays are to be submitted through Submittable at the following link: Submittable
This award may be presented to any student, faculty or working playwright whose play or musical is premiered and produced by a college or university theatre program and entered as an Associate or Participating entry within the KCACTF. Again, to be eligible, the submitted work must have been fully produced (not a staged reading) at the sponsoring school, and be registered as an Associate or Participating production with the festival.
Please remove your name and school affiliation from the play itself.
The play or musical will be read by at least two readers from Region I. The top two choices will be named the Region’s National Semi-Finalists at the Regional Festival in January. Their work will be held in consideration for the national festival in Washington DC in April as National Finalists.
All plays are to be submitted through Submittable at the following link: Submittable
The distinguished playwright and screenwriter Michael Kanin (1910-1993) arranged for a remarkable series of awards to be given to student writers as part of the festival. The purpose of the program is to encourage college students to write for the stage by providing the opportunity for them to engage in the playwriting process.
All plays are to be submitted through Submittable at the following link: Submittable
Please remove your name and school affiliation.
The Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards include:
HIP HOP THEATER CREATOR AWARD KEN LUDWIG PLAYWRITING SCHOLARSHIP THE HAROLD AND MIMI STEINBERG NATIONAL STUDENT PLAYWRITING AWARD KCACTF THEATRE FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES AWARD KCACTF MUSICAL THEATRE AWARD (composer, lyricist, and librettist as well as faculty-written plays also eligible)
LORRAINE HANSBERRY PLAYWRITING AWARD PAULA VOGEL AWARD IN PLAYWRITING THE LATINO PLAYWRITING AWARD JEAN KENNEDY SMITH PLAYWRITING AWARD MARK TWAIN COMEDY PLAYWRITING AWARD ROSA PARKS PLAYWRITING AWARD (faculty-written plays also eligible)
THE PAUL STEPHEN LIM ASIAN-AMERICAN PLAYWRITING AWARD THE NATIONAL PARTNERS OF THE AMERICAN THEATRE PLAYWRITING AWARD THE NATIONAL UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT PLAYWRITING AWARD The National Undergraduate Playwriting Award is granted to an undergraduate who has written the outstanding full-length play. An undergraduate is a student who is currently enrolled in an undergraduate program or who graduated less than a year prior to the submission deadline or within two years prior and who currently has a play entered as an associate or participating production. Graduated students who have enrolled in an MA or MFA program are not eligible.
Eligibility
To be eligible for any student play-writing award, an undergraduate must carry a minimum of 6 semester hours (or equivalent quarter hours), while a graduate must carry 3 semester hours (or equivalent quarter hours). Undergraduate, graduate, and continuing part-time student playwrights must be matriculating, degree-seeking students. It is expected that work on the new play will have begun during the period the student is so enrolled.
Students in on-line courses may submit ten-minute and one-act plays within the region they reside, providing they confirm that they carry the required 6 semester hours of credit when the play was written.
If a school has any associate or participating entry, the school may enter as many original plays for reading awards as it wishes, but no more than two per student per category. A “category” means a maximum of two 10-minute plays, two one-act plays, and two full-length plays allowed per student, a total of six in all.
The exceptions to the above rules are for the David Mark Cohen Award and the National Student Playwriting Award. To qualify, each entered play must have received full productions at the submitting institution and be itself registered as a Participating production or Associate production. In addition, each new play registered as a Participating production will be considered for regional and national festival presentation.
The remainder of the awards are considered reading awards: no production of the play is necessary to be considered for these awards.
A new play or musical may be a collaboration, an adaptation, a company-written play, or a play based on factual materials but may not be a translation. To be eligible, adaptations from other works must include written permission for works under copyright and must involve substantial changes in form and/or expression.
A full-length play is defined as either one major work or two or more shorter works written by the same playwright, based on a single theme, or encompassed within a unifying framework. In all cases, the entry must provide a full evening of theater-approximately one and one-half hours or longer, including intermissions.
If the play has been produced, the production must be presented during the period of the student’s enrollment, or within one full year after his or her enrollment ends.
Very Important: If your play is chosen to be read at the regional festival, you must be able to attend the entire festival week. Your active participation in the process is crucial. If you are unable to attend, your play will be taken out of consideration, and an alternate substituted.
Please note that any one play may qualify for more than one award. Please read through all the award qualifications to see if your play can be submitted for more than one award. As with any portion of this process, if there are questions please contact the NPP Chair for Region One at: npp.chair.region1@gmail.com
