New Visions/New Voices - call for theatre projects at any stage of development process. Open to international projects of any nationality but must be in English language.
Since 1991, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has sponsored a biennial festival called New Visions/New Voices, a program which helps theaters develop new American plays for children and young people.
During each festival, between six and eight artistic teams rehearse and rewrite over a five day period, and then all the projects are presented as staged readings before a national audience of fellow artistic, administrative, and academic practitioners in the field.
For the next festival, in April of 2008, Center is planning on again having two international projects join five projects from the United States. Because all the writers and directors work with local Washington DC professional actors, the scripts must be in English.
2006 was the Center’s first festival to include international projects, and we had successful ones from the Unicorn Theatre in London and Windmill Performing Arts in Adelaide, Australia.
Projects may be at any stage of the development process, from a completed draft nearly ready for production to a treatment at the conception stage. Artistic teams - playwrights, directors, composers - will come to Washington and rehearse and evaluate their work for five days and then present the projects as staged readings, followed by a monitored discussion before an invited audience of fellow artistic, academic and administrative advocates in the field.
The artistic teams have the freedom to move at their own pace in setting their week's end goals and almost everyone who's participated in past festivals has found it to be a wonderfully creative experience. Remember, please, that applications need to come from theaters.
A complete listing of past participants - playwrights, directors, and theaters - is at Kennedy CenterNew Visions 2002 and an article about the 2002 edition of New Visions is at
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How do I submit a proposal for New Visions/New Voices?
A producing theater submits a proposal including a director, a playwright, and a work-in-progress for consideration. Previously produced scripts are not eligible. Submissions can be in the form of a script or a detailed treatment or scenario of a proposed project. If the proposal is a treatment or scenario, we will ask that playwrights submit a writing sample to illustrate their style. Projects must also be part of a forthcoming season at the producing theater.
New Visions/New Voices is unique in that submissions can be at any stage of development, ranging from an idea to a script that has had other readings that is almost ready for production.
2. What happens if I'm selected?
The producing theaters of the selected projects are provided with an honorarium from the Kennedy Center to assist with personal expenses. The Kennedy Center will provide travel for the creative teams (director, playwright, and, if a musical, composer) to come to Washington, DC. The producing theater needs to cover housing, per diem, and fees for their creative team. . The Kennedy Center provides actors, stage managers, music directors, and dramaturgical and production support. Projects rehearse three to four hours a day, allowing time for rewrites, within Actor's Equity staged reading guidelines.
The deadline for submission is August 1, 2007.
More information: New Visions/New Voices
