Play Development And Productions in the Bay Area
These organizations can help bring your script to life
- Playwrights' Center of San Francisco
- Holds scene readings, developmental readings, and staged readings by local playwrights almost every Tuesday night. Fantastic resource in our own back yard! 415-820-3206
- PlayGround
- About 35 writers are selected annually to be part of a pool that writes a short (under ten minutes) play on an announced topic. Winners read at the Monday Night PlayLab, held once a month at Berkeley Rep. A "best of" festival is held in June. See website for details.
- The Playwrights Foundation
- Sponsors the annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival, held in September and October.
- Z Space Studio
- A leading developer of Bay Area Theater.
- Sonoma County Repertory
- Seeks one-acts and full-lengths from Northern California playwrights for "New Drama Works."
- Actor's Theatre of Santa Cruz
- Holds an annual contest for ten minute plays and full lengths. Winning scripts are presented as staged readings.
- Footloose Dance Company
- Annual Women on the Way and Women's Work Festival.
- The Marsh
- The Marsh Works is a home for new performance development, including in-house readings, public readings, and full productions.
- The Creative Work Fund
- Grants from $10,000 to $35,000 for performing and visual artists based in San Francisco or Alameda Counties.
- Three Wise Monkeys
- Company focused exclusively on presenting plays of Bay Area playwrights. They produce the annual Bay One Acts (BOA) festival.
- Impact Theater
- In Berkeley. Accepting full-length plays. Also, sign up for their fabulous email list to hear about play writing opportunities. (On their web site, click on "Contact Us" to get to the email list sign up page.)
- Cutting Ball Theater
- Seeks poetic, unnatural plays for their "Risk Is This" festival.
- Pear Avenue Theatre
- The Pear is a Peninsula theatre company doing full productions and readings of new work.
- Renegade Theatre
- San Jose theatre company accepts script submissions of new full-length plays. Preference given to Bay Area playwrights.
Bay Area Writing Groups and Classes
- Will Dunne's Dramatic Writing Workshop
- San Francisco classes for beginning playwrights through advanced.
- Studio A.C.T.
- Play writing class at American Conservatory Theater. 415-439-2332
- Writers Who Act
- Focuses on developing solo performers. Instructors are Anne Gailjour and Grace Walcott. 415-558-9219
- Creative Consultant
- Ellen Sabastian Chang helps visualize your written work from production view. 510-848-7369
Web Sites With Bay Area Focus
-
Bay Area Theatre
- Listings and capsule reviews of some of the performances happening in the Bay Area.
- Theatre Bay Area
- Most everyone involved with theatre in the Bay Area is a member. Membership gets you a subscription to Theatre Bay Area Magazine. Also check out their publication: Bay Area Theater Directory.
- Museum of Performance & Design
- Preserves and makes accessible materials about the performing arts, with a special emphasis on the San Francisco Bay Area.
- San Francisco Arts Monthly
- Comprehensive listing of Bay Area arts events.
- Independent Arts and Media
- A nonprofit service, support and sponsoring agency for public media and community arts.
- San Francisco Stage and Film
- Focus on new works that are written, directed or produced by women and people of color
- Artist Resource
-
Promotes creative people in the visual and literary arts by providing a supportive community online.
- Film Arts Foundation
-
Resource center for independent filmmakers. Has a magazine, film festival, education, grants, and fiscal sponsorship programs, and equipment rental facility.
- Bay Area Video Coalition
-
Non-commercial media access and training center.
Web Sites With National Focus
- Dramatists Guild of America
- The only professional association for playwrights, composers, and lyricists. Membership is open to all dramatic writers, regardless of their production history. Great source of contracts. Publish "The Dramatist" magazine six times a year.
- Theatre Communications Group
- Publish Dramatist Sourcebook around August of each year. Nationwide source of information on play writing contests, theatre groups, fellowships etc. Publish American Theatre Magazine
- AmericanTheater Web
- Enormous listing of theatre websites nationwide.
- Doollee
- The free online guide to modern playwrights and theatre plays which have been written, or translated, into English since 1956. Yes, you can add yourself and your plays. Very well organized site.
- Playbill On-Line
- The mother of all theatre web sites. Includes the popular Theatre-Central.
- Pilot-Search
- Online literary searches. Very well organized site.
- American Association of Community Theatre
- Great site that includes late-breaking play writing contests.
- Plays on the Net
- A UK site that allows you to upload your play for free to others can access them.
- The Playwriting Seminars
- Great site includes information on how to format a play.
- Drama Workshop
- Great site covering the basics of dramatic writing. Includes writing exercises.
- Rejection Collection
- The writer's and artist's on-line source for misery, commiseration and inspiration. We all need to visit this site every so often.
- Insight for Playwrights
- A monthly marketing newsletter with the latest submission information for theatres, playwriting contests, workshops, residencies, and other development programs for dramatic writers.
- International Centre for Women Playwrights
- The International Centre for Women Playwrights is dedicated to the support of women playwrights around the world. Great web site includes information on play writing opportunities.
- Playscripts Inc.
- Publisher of new plays. They print plays in hardcopy and provide online searchable database of their plays that includes script excerpts. They print many well known playwrights.
Email lists
These are lists you can sign up for and receive notices of play writing opportunities.
- Magic Theatre
- Occasionally announces submission opportunities. Email Mark Routhier
- Playwrights Foundation
- Occasionally announces submission opportunities and workshops.
- Impact Theatre
- Nationwide playwriting and related opportunities compiled by Bay Area theatre company. Email Impact
- Theater Bay Area
- Occasionally announces submission opportunities. Available to TBA members.
- Dramatists Guild
- Monthly email list includes submission opportunities. Available to members.
- Playwrights Center of San Francisco
- Emails include submission opportunities. Available to members.
Writing Books
Suggested by our members (thanks Marilyn Flowers!) and guest speakers.
These are available at Amazon.
Playwriting in Process by Michael Wright
Story by Robert McKee
The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri
The Playwright's Process by Buzz McLaughlin
The Playwright's Workbook by Jean-Claude van Itallie
The Playwright's Handbook by Frank Pike and Thomas G. Dunn
Anatomy of Drama by Martin Esslin
Audition by Michael Shurtleff
True and False by David Mamet
Three Uses of the Knife by David Mamet
The Playwright as Thinker by Eric Bentley
Frames of Mind by Howard Gardner
Poetics by Aristotle
Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
State of Play : Playwrights on Playwriting by David Edgar
Story Sense by Paul Lucey
The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler
Scriptwork: A Director's Approach to New Play Development by David Kahn
The Dramatist's Toolkit by Jeffrey Sweet
Solving Your Script by Jeffrey Sweet
The Paris Review's Playwrights at Work edited by George Plimpton
The Art & Craft of Playwrighting by Jeffrey Hatcher
Playwrighting Master Class, The Personality of Process and the Art of
Rewriting Edited by Michael Wright
Other suggestions?
Tell us.