New Playwright
Award

COMPETITION CURRENTLY CLOSED
NO SCRIPTS ACCEPTED
Check Back to this page each Summer for upcoming contest guidelines

The Do Gooder New Playwright Award Committee seeks script submissions from playwrights whose work has not previously received a Broadway or Off-Broadway production under a paid Equity contract (regional and showcase productions do not disqualify). The winning entry in the annual competition receives $500 and development leading to an Equity Off-Broadway (Letter of Agreement) production during a subsequent Do Gooder season. English-language scripts may be submitted by mail only to: Do Gooder Productions 359 West 54th Street, Suite 4FS New York, NY 10019-7507. All entries should include a stamped self-addressed envelope for return of scripts and a one-page biography. Each author may submit one full-length or an evening's worth of one-acts (submitted material may not be under option); translations, collaborations, and musicals are not accepted. Scripts are accepted each season from SEPTEMBER 1 through DECEMBER 1 COMPETITION CURRENTLY CLOSED - NO SCRIPTS ACCEPTED. Except for the Award Competition, Do Gooder does not accept unsolicited scripts at any other time.

Gil Rogers, Chevi Colton, and Rosemary Prinz in On Deaf Ears, Robin Rothstein's 1996 New Playwright Award winning entry. Tony Award-winning actor Michael Rupert marked his Off-Broadway directing debut with 1997 Award winner The Lunch Anxieties.

The first annual winner of the competition, New York-based playwright Robin Rothstein, had her play On Deaf Ears mounted at New York City's Martin R. Kaufman Theater in the Winter of the 1996-97 season. The production featured Rosemary Prinz and Gil Rogers and was cited by The New York Times as "The work of a promising playwright." The second annual winner, New York-based playwright Larry Kunofsky's The Lunch Anxieties, ran Off-Broadway in the 1997-98 season at the Harold Clurman Theatre. The production marked the Off-Broadway directing debut of Tony Award-winning actor Michael Rupert. Karla Jennings of Decatur, GA was the 1998 Award winner. Her play Dish Babies was workshopped in Los Angeles in 2001.

The most recent Award Committee members were: Do Gooder's Artistic Director and actor/playwright Mark Robert Gordon; Do Gooder's Artistic Advisors Broadway veterans Florence Stanley and Gil Rogers and retired Broadway columnist Joseph C. Koenenn; director/theater academic Charles Carshon; actors Gloria Carshon, Gloria Cromwell, Hal Studer, and Billie Lou Watt; directors Gareth Hendee and John Ruocco; Broadway stage manager Craig Jacobs; NEWSDAY journalist Annabelle Kerins; playwright and Ollantay Theater Magazine publisher Pedro R. Monge-Rafuls; 1997 New Playwright Award winner Robin Rothstein; and retired producer Barton Wimble.

(clockwise from upper left) Eve Plumb, Patricia Harty, Charlene Tilton, and Steve Heller in the 2001 Award-winning L.A. workshop of Dish Babies, Karla Jennings' 1998 New Playwright Award-winning entry.