Contest Winners Selected

Winning plays have been selected from the more than 180 submissions in this year's 2nd Annual 517 Playwrights 10-Minute Play Contest. Five Kentucky and three non-Kentucky playwrights have had scripts selected for production as part of this year's Festival of New Kentucky Plays that will be presented November 18- 21, 2010 at The Bards Town Theatre in Louisville, KY. The winning scripts will be announced once each of the winning playwrights has agreed to participate in this year's Festival.

Walker Receives Emerging Artist Award

Recently the Kentucky Arts Council (KAC) announced its selection of six artists as recipients of its Emerging Artist Awards: Daniel Cherry, literary –fiction, Pulaski County; Amelia Martens, literary – fiction, McCracken County; Britton Shurley, literary – poetry, McCracken County; Eric Stem, musical composition, Jefferson County; Brian Walker, literary – playwriting, Jefferson County; and Mariam Williams, literary – creative nonfiction, Jefferson County.

Of the six recipients, Brian Walker of Louisville is a member of the Kentucky Playwrights Workshop, Inc and a judge of this year's non-Kentucky entries in the 2nd Annual 517 Playwrights 10-Minute Play Contest.

To read the copmplete announcement go to:
http://migration.kentucky.gov/Newsroom/kyarts/Fellowship_Announce_071510.htm

One Day Left

There is only a little more than one day left to enter this year's 2nd Annual 517 Playwrights 10-Minute Play Contest; send in your entry today. The contest closes at midnight 30 June 2010 so don't delay in sending in your submission. The rules were posted on this blog on May 2, 2010. The email address for submissions is ky.playwright@yahoo.com

Play Contest: One Week to Go!

You've put it off long enough. You know you have. That 10-minute play that has been parked in the back of your mind for months just waiting to burst out of you and onto paper needs to be written. So write it and submit it to this years 2nd Annual 517 Playwrights 10-Minute Play Contest. The dead line is 11:59:59 on June 30th so you have one week to finish your script and get it submitted for this year's contest. Submissions should be sent to ky.playwright@yahoo.com

Complete rules can be found on this blog under the May 2, 2010 posting.

Winers will be announced later this year. Selected plays will likely be produced in October/November of this year.

A Better Picture

Another picture from the June 13th meeting of
517 Playwrights. Left to Right are: James Brown,
Bill McCann, Jr., Steve Taylor, and Kathi E. B.
Ellis. Bill Forsyth was the photographer. (An un-
known coffee drinker/blogger is in the background.) Please come join us for our next meeting on July 11th, 2:00 pm at Common
Grounds Coffee House.

Contest Statistics

517 Playwrights Second Annual 10-Minute Play Contest closes in just 18 days. As of today we have received 143 submissions from 26 US states, 3 Canadian provinces and Australia. Of those 143 entries 34 (@25%) were authored by women.

Leading in submissions are Kentucky, with 22 scripts; California, 21; New York, 16; Illinois 7; Ohio 5; and with four each Iowa, Maryland, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

Canadian provinces from which entries have come are Ontario, Prince Edward Island, and Quebec.

The play contest closes at midnight on June 30, 2010-- still two and a half weeks away-- so it is not too late to submit a script. Complete rules can be found on this blog, May 2, 2010. Entries should be sent to ky.playwright@yahoo.com Late entries will not be read; so, enter today!

Next Meeting: June 13th

The next meeting of 517 Playwrights will be Sunday June 13, 2010, from 1:30 - 4:30 at Common Grounds Coffee House. We will meet on the third floor for the purpose of reading new plays by members and dicussing the 2nd Annual 517 Playwrights 10-Minute Play Contest. If you would like to have a script read please bring one script per character (to a maximum of five copies) so that readers may have their own script.

Please Folks, Follow the Rules

Ok, Folks. Enough is enough! Please follow the rules: if you are a playwright AND a resident of Kentucky you may enter two scripts in this year's contest; if you are NOT a Kentucky resident, you may only enter one script. We have received close to 100 scripts now and between 25 and 30 playwrights have submitted two scripts, but only five of the multiple submission playwrights are Kentuckians. Please read the rules-- posted on May 2, 2010-- and follow them. We all learned in kindergarten to follow the rules, now as adults, we need to do what we learned as five year-olds! Thank you.

10 MINUTE PLAY CONTEST = 10 PAGES

Okay. I thought this would have been obvious, it's in the title of the contest, but we are seeking 10 minute plays. A ten minute play runs 10 minutes, not three, or four, or five minutes. Please submit plays that are 10 pages long, or close to that length (8 or 9 pages, at least). Plays that are too short are not considered for production; Neither are plays that too long-- in excess of 10 pages of dialogue. Common sense is the factor that should be your guide: 11 pages is too long, seven pages is too short.

Use a 12 font sized font such as Courier or Times New Roman and make certain that your play has 10 pages of dialogue. Last year we produced seven scripts: 6 of the 7 scripts were between about 9 minutes 50 seconds and 10 minutes 15 seconds; the seventh script, which ran about 8 minutes, was about 8 1/2 pages long. Please do not submit short scripts, they may be read; they will not be chosen for production.

As a reminder: this is a 10-minute play contest, submit a 10-minute play script.

517: On the Radio!

News about this year's play contest is starting to get around. On Sunday May 30, 2010 Bill McCann, Jr., contest coordinator for the 2nd Annual 517 Playwrights 10-Minute Play Contest will be on "Key Conversations" on Groovin' 1580AM radio to discuss this year's play contest. Key Conversations, sponsored by Key Newsjournal and Clear Channel Radio, Lexington, KY, airs at 10 am each Sunday morning. For more information about the program you may go to the link www.groovin1580.com Happy listening!

June Meeting

The June meeting of 517 Playwrights will be Sunday June 13th, from 1:30 to 4:30 pm, at Common Grounds Coffee House, Lexington. Bring scripts if you've got 'em and want 'em read and discussed. Please remember to bring one copy per character (max. 5 copies) to make reading and sharing easier. Keep in mind that our July and August meetings will likely be focused on reading and discussing contest entries so bring your script to the June meeting. See you then.