New play submissions are due to the O'Neill on September 18th and to Great Plains Theatre Commons on October 15. So it's time for my annual reminder: many of the folks reading and adjudicating for these kinds of festivals also work at/for other theaters around the country...

Ojai Playwrights Conference & New Works Festival application window will be open 9/19-26. You should submit your work! It's a straightforward application, and we believe in you: www.ojaiplays.org/play-submiss....

Just because your play isn't selected for a particular opportunity doesn't mean that there isn't now somebody advocating for it/for you to get an opportunity that isn't even on your radar. No matter the outcome of a selection process, someone has read your work; that's never a bad thing. #newplays

Look, Mom! I’m on the front page of @newplayexchange.bsky.social!

We mourn the loss of National New Play Network Board Member & Affiliated artist Lavina Jadhwani, the great human & Chicago-based playwright whose scripts I'll be enjoying on NPX this weekend. newplayexchange.org/users/5506/l...

Caro Asercion, Dañel Malán-González, Hannah Wolf, India Nicole Burton, Jessica Bird Beza, Matt Stabile, Peggy McKowen, and Riti Sachdeva have joined the 2026 NNPN Board of Directors! nnpn.org/nnpn-news/7p...

lovely to see my play GUAPA on the recommended lost of Transcultural Plays curated by Saviana Stanescu on @newplayexchange.bsky.social today. if you know this play, its big piece of my ⚽ heart.

We now have over 5k audition monologues from full scripts available to actors on New Play Exchange because our writers are glorious. Well done, y’all!

Writers of NPX! We have 4,957 audition monologues published to the site as of this moment. Will you add your monologues from your existing scripts to help us get to that magical 5,000 number?

Big thanks to @newplayexchange.bsky.social for featuring us on their homepage today! We love being part of a space that supports playwrights and new work! #playwrights #audiodrama #comedies #theatre #newplays

Invitation for NPX-ers: Join Amy Wheeler's Play Club to hear from playwright Lauren Yee & actor Francis Jue — fresh off his Tony win for best featured actor in Yellow Face. RSVP w/“NPX" in the subject line to [email protected]. Learn more about this community for theatre folx: www.theplayclub.org

We believe theater has the extraordinary ability to foster empathy, cultivate understanding, & strengthen communities. By amplifying diverse voices & championing new works, we invite audiences to engage with stories that challenge, inspire, & reflect the complexities of our shared human experience.

The time draws nigh! Our fiscal year ends at midnight, & you can help us reach our $20k matching grant.

“We are not competition; we are all part of an environment that seeks to entertain, enlighten, and excite people. Supporting new work is one of the most risky but rewarding ways we can do that in our programming.” - NNPN Producer-In-Residence Aria Velz

Five years after the anti-racist manifesto We See You, White American Theatre challenged the theatre industry, Gabriela Furtado Coutinho and Kelundra Smith search for answers and accountability. From our Spring 2025 print issue: www.americantheatre.org/2025/06/16/w...

“In so many ways NNPN has altered the trajectory of my career. Being associated with NNPN has been a powerful reminder of how supporting and uplifting our community of theatermakers are and how we derive strength from being in solidarity.”

Because y’all are the best, we’re halfway to our $20k matching goal!

You glorious beings who’ve pitched in toward our $20k matching grant are strengthening our 130+ Member Theaters, equipping them with tools, support, & collab opps to inspire & engage their communities ❤️

A very smart read from our very smart Impact Assessment Director, Alex Meda! "The House Is on Fire, but We Don't Have to Rebuild It the Same Way."

Our founders have given us a $20k matching grant, which we hope you’ll help us meet by our June 1 deadline.

My full-length play FOUR WOMEN IN RED is currently posted on @newplayexchange.bsky.social , in a list of MMIR plays curated by @jeanetteharrison.bsky.social . It will be published this summer by Broadway Play Publishing. It’s available for free for a few days right now.

We’ve been given a $20k matching grant that we have between now and the end of June to meet! Our founders, David Goldman and Carol Dweck, have given us this lovely gift to continue to empower artists.

Tell an actor pal! We think they’ll like it.

We are looking for our newest team member and collaborator: a lover of the arts with a background in arts administration or event producing who relishes the opportunity to work for a values-aligned organization. howlround.com/were-hiring-...

@newplayexchange.bsky.social readers, last chance to read my play DESDEMONA'S CHILD on NPX before it goes into licensing.

Today, the National New Play Network is launching a new way to unlock the resources of New Play Exchange: two new Actor Pro subscriptions, which will allow actors to search their growing library.

Spread the word to your actor pals! No need to bring Viola’s ring monologue to that audition unless you’re *really* feeling it.

Big news! It's been about 10 years in the making, and the time has come: Two new NPX subscription types have just become available for Actors🎉 🧵

Playwrights of NPX! This is your last call to upload audition monologues from your full scripts *before* we launch the new Actor subscriptions. We're making some last-minute tweaks before releasing it to the whole wide Actor world🎉

Do you have a play you'd like more eyes on, and in what way? (i.e. Would you like to connect with dramaturgs to work on the story? Do you want feedback from readers, actors, producers, and/or theatre companies, and where can set up private or public developmental readings?)

Well that's the end of our hour—thank you so much to @newplayexchange.bsky.social for hosting and everyone who joined! What did you think? Should we do something like this again? Feel free to reply here, send us a DM, or email me at ramona [at] howlround [dot] com with any feedback. #newplay

Thank you so much, @howlround.bsky.social, for bringing us all together! We looooove yoooooou. #newplay

Even though we're officially wrapping up here in a couple minutes, we hope folks will keep chatting! We're so glad you're here, #newplay internet friends, and we're excited to keep having these conversations.

So many FUNNY LIKE AN ABORTION by Rachel Bublitz REFUGE by Satay Chavez and Andrew Rosendorf THE LAST YIDDISH SPEAKER by Deborah Zoe Laufer RIFT by Gabriel Jason Dean CLOSE TO HOME by Sharifa Yasmin AMERICAN Fast by Kareem Fahmy BUILDING THE WALL by Robert Schenkkan and more

BONUS QUESTION! What do you wish we'd asked about but didn't? #newplay

Q9, and last official question of the hour! Besides your own work, which is obviously glorious: What play do you wish was being produced in every city in the country this season? #newplay

Which theater will be the first to produce the #steveyockey Planetary Cycle? sign me up for tix!!!

A city-wide costume closet would be amazing!! #newplay

My absolute favorite thing is when actors mess up a line in a way that's better than what I wrote. It's the best feedback to me, their tongue knowing my play better than I do! #newplay

I recently got a copy of Steve Yockey's latest play, Venus, and I wish I were still running a theatre so I could produce (and design) it. (I have previously designed Pluto and designed and directed Mercury. And also directed and lit Sleeping Giant. And designed Heavier Than...)

So here's how it'll work: @newplayexchange.bsky.social will post some questions, and you can answer by replying directly to them or by making your own post with #newplay. To follow the conversation, search for #newplay and then hit "latest." We'll be here for one hour.

Feel free to DM either account with questions at any time if you're having trouble. I'm Ramona, HowlRound's digital content and communications manager, and I'll get back to you if you message this account. #newplay

Q8: 8. Shout out your fandom! Whose work do you love right now? Who should I read next? #newplay

I love working as a #newplay dramaturg because there’s just something so thrilling about sitting with a playwright and helping them dream up or clarify a whole world. It stretches my brain in a way nothing else really does.

One of my favorite responses that came in substantially similar form from both an actor in a show and later an audience member was, "First of all: how dare you." (complimentary)

I love to hear the nuances they experience, nuances that sometimes I don't even realize are there. I learn so much from actors. And often, the things that directors and others want me to take out, those are the things that actors find. Their experience with my work reinforces my choices. #newplay

Q7: (Asked in a legit non-snarky way): Why do you keep writing plays? What keeps you making theatre? #newplay

Would love to see more writers raised up who aren't writing just about their own identity, but about the cross currents between different identities, both socially and the internal/personal.

I love hearing from actors who perform my work! As an actor myself, I know how it feels to connect with a script and a character, and I'm so happy when I get to chat with other actors and writers about such things.

BTW, shameless plug, NPX will be launching an Actor platform SOON, so actors can find audition monologues from living playwrights that suit them. If you're a playwright & this kind of representation for characters & actors is meaningful to you, I encourage you to add your scripts' monologues on NPX.