Guidelines for Playwrights

The Northumberland Festival of the Arts will present 3 staged readings of one act plays in 3 locations during the festival, scheduled for September 16^th to October 2^nd, 2022.

The play selection committee is looking for:

• one act plays between 20 and 40 minutes long
• never before produced scripts
• casts of up to 4 interesting characters
• strong plot
• convincing conflict, development, and a satisfactory resolution (Is the protagonist challenged, or does the protagonist grow and/or change in some way, over the course of the play?)
• gratuitous profanity is not advisable

Thinking about content…

1. No tragedies at this time—our theme for the festival is: Celebrating Resilience.
2. Will a Northumberland audience see the play’s relevance to our lives now?

“How do we keep the audience’s attention? Certainly not by giving them more information but, on the contrary, by withholding information—by withholding all information except that information in the absence of which the progress of the story would become incomprehensible.”—David Mamet in On Directing Film

DEADLINE FOR SUBMITTING SCRIPTS: January 31st 2022.

Queries can be sent to felicity936@gmail.com 

Email scripts to Jessica Outram: jessica@creativitycoaching.ca 

Please put NFOTA Play Submission in the subject line.