Milken Playwriting Prize photo

Milken Community Schools is excited to announce the creation of a major international playwriting prize for plays written to be performed by teenagers.  The prize includes a cash award of $2,000, a script development process, and a full production of the play. A professional dramaturg will assist the playwright and provide readings as needed during the rewriting process. The winner will be promoted to theatres and high schools internationally.

This much-needed award encourages the writing of plays meant for teenagers to perform. High schools, unlike theatres, are constantly looking for large-cast plays with a majority of female actors. Although a variety of grants currently exist for both plays written for adults to perform and plays created by children, the Milken Playwriting Prize is for plays written to be performed by teens.  


“This is a wonderful opportunity for playwrights,” says Milken Playwriting Prize Director Robert Menna . “Our hope is that an increasing number of writers will focus on plays for younger performers. It’s also a chance for writers to challenge themselves in a new way, with the assurance of a professional-level development process and a full production.”


SUBMISSION POLICY:  Professional playwrights and authors are especially encouraged to submit. There is no entry fee. The plays must be unproduced and unpublished, have casts larger than 10, use a majority of female actors, and be between 30 and 90 minutes in length. Other parameters can be found on the Milken Playwriting Prize web page:
 www.milkenschool.org/playprize

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS:   September 15, 2014 .
Prize announced: January, 2015
Development process:  through April, 2015
Production opens:  November, 2015 

Robert Menna , Director of the Milken Playwriting Prize, has extensive experience working with playwrights. He served as Dramaturg/Literary Manager at Seattle’s Intiman Theatre, founded the Seattle Playwrights Alliance, and worked as co-director of the Ojai Playwrights Conference. He has written and directed dozens of plays, working with noted writers and receiving a commission from the Denver Center to adapt Newbery Award Winner Avi’s The End of the Beginning  . As an educator, Menna  taught in the MFA Acting Program at the National Theatre Conservatory in Denver as well as in various high schools.  For more than eight years, he has taught at Milken Community Schools. He has also co-directed the Denver Center’s Living History program, which reached more than 10,000 high school students annually with its mix of theatre, history, ethics and literature. He holds an MFA in Directing from the University of Washington. 

About Milken Community Schools
Milken Community Schools is one of the largest Jewish, independent, co-educational schools in the country. Serving grades 7-12, Milken is a place of rigorous academic exploration and intellectual inquiry built on a foundation of spiritual and ethical practice, developing students with sharp minds, generous hearts, and kind souls. The school’s 10-acre campus is located in the Santa Monica Mountains along the Mulholland Corridor.