Submissions Closed – Thank you!

Posted on April 1, 2013 by amarsh

Submissions for the 2013 OOB Short Play Festival are now closed. Thank you to our applicants for the opportunity to read your work! Our reading and deliberating are now well underway, and we can’t wait to see who our Final Forty will be this year…

Please check back with us in mid-May for the announcement of finalists.

All best,
The OOB Team

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2013 Submissions are OPEN!

Posted on February 25, 2013 by amarsh

We are excited to announce that submissions for The 38th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival are now being accepted!

Please visit our Submit page for this year’s guidelines and online application.

Submitting this year will be similar to years past, but please review all information for 2013 carefully, because some guidelines have changed. Please note that:

  • We will be accepting only digital submissions (in .PDF or .DOC formats). Once you complete the online application and have agreed to the terms and conditions of the Festival, you will be prompted to upload your submission.
  • We will only be accepting two submissions per author.
  • Additionally, there is a $10 submission fee per each submission. This fee is payable by credit card only. After you have successfully uploaded your submission, you will be prompted for payment through our secure Paypal portal. Please note, we will not receive your submission unless payment has been made.
  • The 38th Annual Samuel French Inc. Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival will take place July 22nd-28th at the Beckett Theatre in Theatre Row on 42nd Street in New York City.

Submissions must be uploaded no later than March 31st, 11:59pm PST, 2013 to be considered for this year’s Festival.

The Festival will feature a selection of 40 short plays and musicals, chosen from hundreds of submissions by playwriting workshops, university theatre programs, professional companies and self-producing playwrights both in the US and abroad. The week-long Festival features a full program of the selected plays and musicals performed for a panel of judges comprised of established playwrights, literary agents and artistic directors who nominate one or more of each evening’s plays as finalists. Out of these plays, six finalists will be chosen by Samuel French, Inc. to receive publication and licensing contracts.

In addition to publication and representation by Samuel French, the winning selections will have the opportunity of a performance or reading with partner theatres, including City Theatre in Miami, FL and Fusion Theatre Company in Albuquerque NM. Winning playwrights will also receive an invitation to attend the Citywrights conference in Miami, hosted by City Theatre.

Questions? Please email oobfestival@samuelfrench.com

Be a part of one of the most prestigious short play festivals in the world! We can’t wait to read your plays!

- The Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival Staff

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Information about the 2013 Festival!

Posted on January 24, 2013 by amarsh

Attention Short Play Lovers!

The Samuel French OOB Festival is waking up from hibernation and getting ready for a great 2013 year!  We’re in the process of formalizing our submissions process at the moment, and submissions should be open very soon.  If you would like us to email you when submissions are open, please send an email to OOBFestival@samuelfrench.com and we will add you to our mailing list (we keep your info private, don’t worry!)

In the meantime, there are some very exciting announcements to be made: The Samuel French OOB Festival will take place July 23rd to July 28th at the Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row in New York! We are very excited to be moving the Festival back to the Summer, and are very happy to be continuing our relationship with one of New York’s premiere producing spaces, Theatre Row.

Watch for more posts soon about submissions, as well as the publication of our 2012 collection of winning plays!

Happy Playwriting!

Billie, Amy, Casey, Katy, and the rest of the Samuel French Family

P.S. We hope you have time to check out our fabulous collections of past winners on our new website!

P.P.S. Have you visited the Samuel French online magazine, [Breaking Character]?  There are some wonderful articles about all the new plays and going-ons here at Samuel French!

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This Year’s Winners: A Letter from the OOB Festival

Posted on October 28, 2012 by amarsh

Dear Participants, Festival Followers, and fans our new Short Plays,

As many of you know, it is with a heavy heart that we had to regretfully cancel the Finals of this year’s Festival due to weather conditions in NYC.
I can’t tell you enough how saddened we were by the decision to cancel. We’ve never had to cancel a Finals session before, and it was not something we decided to do lightly. The Samuel French Festival Staff, who has gotten to know you all over emails, through these shows, and of course, at Beer Authority, was very excited and eager to see these final performances. We are enormous fans of all of our Festival playwrights and their plays.
 
Though we had to cancel the Finals, the selection committee for this year’s Festival was not only present at every single performance throughout the week, but also hand-selected the 40 plays that were produced in the Festival. We are intimately familiar with the plays and artists that are part of the Festival.
 
As such, we felt confident in taking time this afternoon to deliberate and decide which plays would be selected for publication and representation by Samuel French, rather than try to reschedule the Finals. We came to this decision for many reasons. One is that several Finalists this year are from out of town, the logistics of trying to find a day in the near future where all 13 producing organizations could come together to perform one last time was, unfortunately, not feasible. But more importantly, this is a playwriting competition, and while performance and production is incredibly important, we are passionate about cultivating new playwriting voices. We picked your scripts because we love all of your artistry as playwrights, and while it was exhilarating to see your plays come to life, we ultimately publish the plays on the paper page. We asked the Judges to focus on playwrights voice when selecting the shows that would move on to the Finals, and this is how we have decided to select this year’s six winners.
 
So without further ado, I am pleased to announce the six winners from the 37th Annual Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival:
•             ANNIVERSARY by Rachel Bonds
•             NAKED EYES by Dean Imperial
•             FORGETTING TO REMEMBER by Greg Kalleres
•             MISSED CONNECTION by Catya McMullen
•             EDISON/TESLA BRIAN/DAVE by Kevin Mead and Darren Miller
•             WOLF PLAY by Claire Kiechel
 
Again, congratulations to all of our Finalists. You shared with us some truly amazing plays. Your incredible voices and have given us the opportunity to meet and work with you, and for that we could not be more thankful.
 
We hope to hear from you all soon, and please stay safe during this storm, whether you’re trying to get back home, or hunkering down in one of the boroughs.
Sincerely,
Billie Davis, and the rest of the OOB Festival Team
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Important Storm Update – Today’s Performances Canceled

Posted on October 28, 2012 by amarsh

Dear OOB Family,

Due to the pending storm and the NYC wide transit shutdown at 7pm we are canceling all performances for the Sunday Finals. Because of the necessity to cancel the 5:30 performances, we did not feel it was fair to have only some productions take place instead of all.

All tickets purchased through Telecharge will be refunded.

We will let everyone know next steps in announcing the winners shortly. The decision to cancel was made with a heavy heart, and we are sorry to not be able to share this day with these outstanding 13 finalists, and their collaborators and friends.

Many many thanks and congratulations to everyone who has taken part in the festival this week. It’s been an extraordinary year – a Frankenstorm of talent, if you will. Stay safe, everyone!

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