2025 Original Script Workshop

Great Escape Stage Company is assembling a 2025 workshop for original short plays by authors residing in southern lower Michigan, northern Indiana, and northern Ohio.

 

To be considered, each submitted script must:

— Conform to this overall theme: “The beauties and challenges of American small-town life.”

— Be the unpublished original work of the submitting author.

— Feature a performance length not to exceed 10 minutes of action and dialogue.

— Require a cast of no more than five performers.

— Require only a simple, small set. (Sets will not be constructed for the public reading.)

— Be no more than 10 pages in length, double-spaced and typewritten, not including the two cover pages described below. 

— Include two cover pages, as submissions will be judged “blind.” The initial page may show the author’s name and contact information (surface mail, email, phone number, etc.); this page will be removed and kept separate from the judging panel. The second, duplicate cover page must not show the author’s name or contact information. The author’s name also must not appear at any point in the script. 

 

Scripts may be submitted no later than Sept. 1, 2024, with a $10 reading fee for each submission. The workshop committee reserves the right to end the submission period earlier. 

 

Physical scripts may be mailed flat and unfolded in a manilla envelope to Great Escape Stage Company, P.O. Box 621, Marshall, MI 49068 USA. Scripts in Word format also may be submitted by email at GESCmarshall@gmail.com.

 

The workshop committee will appoint a panel of volunteer readers who will judge each script and, before Dec. 1, 2024, provide individual feedback by email, telephone, or surface mail to each author. 

 

From the pool of submitted scripts, the panel will select no more than seven for a public reading in GESC’s black-box theater in late January 2025. No royalty fees will be paid for the performance of the selected scripts. All authors of submitted works will be invited to attend free of charge. A ticket fee will be charged to audience members.

 

Playwrights will be allowed to adjust their scripts accordingly before the public reading, which will be conducted by a group of volunteer performers selected by GESC’s artistic director as well as individual volunteer directors. Directors will be given a free hand in casting, production, and creative interpretation. Performers are expected to be chosen during December 2024; they will not be required to memorize the scripts, will have minimal rehearsals, and may participate in more than one reading. 

 

First-, second- and third-prize monetary awards of amounts to be determined will be presented to the authors of the three scripts considered by the judging panel to be of exemplary quality; judging will be based solely on the quality of the script and the author’s response to any feedback, and all decisions by the judging panel will be final. 

 

If there are questions, please contact Artistic Director, Randy Lake, at GESCmarshall@gmail.com or Workshop Coordinator, Sarah Smit, at sarah.e.stiner@gmail.com.

 

Performance Dates & Times

Sep
1
Sun.
11:59 PM

Casting

For casting information, please contact Randy Lake at gescmarshall@gmail.com, or keep an eye on the Great Escape Stage Company Facebook page.