Submissions for 2025 Ashland New Plays Festival open Tuesday

ASHLAND, Ore — There is so much preparation that goes into the Ashland New Plays Festival, or ANPF’s flagship fall festival, that the seasons technically overlap. While the final touches are being put on the 2024 festival that runs October 16-20, submissions are opening up tomorrow for the 2025 event. ANPF board president Chris Mock stopped by Sunrise this morning to chat with Emily Storm about the rigorous process they undergo to sift through hundreds of submissions each year.

Before the week-long celebration of the four winning entries, ANPF receives up to 350 submissions, that are then passed along to dozens of volunteer play-readers. One unique feature of the ANPF festival is that during this initial reading process, authorship is intentionally kept from the readers, ensuring each play is judged on its own merit, in lieu of the reputation of the playwright. This gives playwrights with all levels of experience the same shot at making it to the final stages of the selection process. If selected to be featured in the fall festival, the playwright is awarded a $1,500 honorarium, along with airfare and accommodations to attend the festival. The four winning entries are then given two staged readings, complete with audience talkbacks. There will also be a playwriting workshop and community receptions.

For more information about the submission guidelines, how to become a volunteer play-reader, to check out the ANPF Play4Keeps podcast, or to purchase tickets to the 2024 fall festival, you can visit the ANPF website.