The Playwrights Realm Accepting Applications for 2011-2012 Writing Fellows Program

The Playwrights Realm - the Off-Broadway theatre company dedicated to nurturing the next generation of theatrical voices - is currently accepting submissions for its 3rd annual Writing Fellows program; deadline for submission is April 30, 2011.

The Writing Fellows program is at the heart of The Playwrights Realm's mission - helping writers write. Each year, four promising playwrights receive nine months of resources, readings and feedback, designed to craft and complete a single new work. This full season of creative development is tailored to meet each individual writer's professional goals.

Each writing fellow will receive a monetary stipend, and will work one-on-one with Artistic Director Katherine Kovner and the entire Playwrights Realm staff to bring their play from a rough-draft to a production ready script through a process of monthly reviews and revisions in a challenging and motivating environment. Fellows also get valuable input from their talented co-fellows, as well as established theater professionals in monthly meetings. The experience is designed to widen each artist's network of resources and enable them to gain a foothold in the ever turbulent New York theatre landscape. Finalists for the program will be interviewed in the spring and final selections will be announced in the summer of 2011.

For a list of criteria and application process for The Playwrights Realm's Writing Fellows program please visit The Playwrights Realm website - www.PlaywrightsRealm.org.

Over the last two seasons The Playwrights Realm has fostered several up-and-coming playwrights.

During the 2009-2010 season of Writing Fellows, those playwrights included: Amy Herzog, whose play AFTER THE REVOLUTION - which was her Writing Fellows play - received its New York première via Playwrights Horizons earlier this season and garnered such rave reviews as, "a fine and fiercely well-acted new play...smart [and] engrossing," from Charles Isherwood of The New York Times. And Joe Tracz, whose Writing Fellows play IN THE WOOD WHERE WOLVES ARE was given a staged reading by The Public Theatre earlier this season.

The current season's class of Writing Fellows - which consists of Bekah Brunstetter and her play HEY BROTHER; Mattie Brickman and her play LO BLARNEY; Christopher Pena and his play ICARUS BURNS; and Stefanie Zadravec and her play ELECTRIC BABY - is set to have its final public presentation - entitled INK'D - in two parts, on Monday, June 6 and Monday, June 13 at the Cherry Lane Theater. Further details TBA.

Additionally, Ms. Zadravec - along with director Daniella Topol - were recently awarded the New York Coalition of Professional Women in the Arts and Media's Collaborative Award for their work on her Writing Fellows play ELECTRIC BABY. Ms. Brickman will debut her commissioned work - PLAYGROUND: THE HALLIE FLANAGAN PROJECT - March 1st at Vassar. And Ms. Brunstetter's play BE A GOOD LITTLE WIDOW will receive its World-Premiere from Ars Nova later this season and will see her play A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE on the boards via the Naked Angels Summer of 2011.

The Playwrights Realm is a nonprofit Off-Broadway Theater Company dedicated to nurturing the next generation of exciting theatrical voices by providing sustained support to early-career playwrights. Their past productions include: this season's DRAMATIS PERSONAE by Gonzalo Rodríguez Risco, Christopher Wall's DREAMS OF THE WASHER KING, Anna Ziegler's critically acclaimed production of DOV AND ALI and Anton Dudley's SUBSTITUTION. The Playwrights Realm is led by Artistic Director Katherine Kovner and Producing Director Stephanie Ybarra.

For more information on THE Playwrights Realm please visit www.PlaywrightsRealm.org.