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Huntington Playwriting Fellows

What is The Huntington Playwriting Fellows Program?

Through The Huntington Playwriting Fellows program, The Huntington fosters ongoing, artistic relationships with local playwrights at all stages of their careers, from emerging talents to established experts.

The initial two-year fellowship:

The first two years of the fellowship are a formalized relationship-building period that is supported by a modest grant to the writer. During that time, writers participate in a scheduled series of meetings with literary staff and other writers in their cohort; have the opportunity to hold informal, closed-door readings with local actors; are invited to participate in peer-led classes and meet-ups organized with alumni of the program; and otherwise benefit from access to the artistic staff and to the resources of The Huntington.

 

Resources open to alumni of the program:

In recent years, The Huntington has created programs such as a 14-day new play workshop first held in the summer 2012 (and repeated annually since then, except for in 2018) and a series of peer-led classes that began in 2017. These two opportunities are open solely to alumni of the program and have their own competitive proposal processes. Writers have also been sporadically invited to participate in the theatre’s yearly Breaking Ground reading festival. While programs like Summer Workshop are not guaranteed to occur every year, The Huntington Playwriting Fellowship is a strategic cornerstone of The Huntington’s new play development work, and will remain so in the future.

Currently, Huntington Playwriting Fellows also receive complimentary tickets to Huntington productions.

 

Production:

The fellowship does not include any promise — implicit or explicit — of production by the Huntington. No writer has ever been produced by the theatre during their initial two-year fellowship, and most alumni of the program have not been produced by the theatre.

 

About The Huntington’s New Play Initiatives and Playwriting Fellows Program

The Huntington Playwriting Fellows (HPF) program creates relationships between a local community of writers and a nationally prominent producing theatre, forges those bonds through authentic conversation and artistic collaboration, and encourages dialogue between local artists. Huntington productions of plays by Fellows include The Niceties by Eleanor Burgess; Sonia Flew, Becoming Cuba, Mala, and Yerma by Melinda Lopez; Milk Like Sugar and Luck of the Irish by Kirsten Greenidge; Stick Fly and Smart People by Lydia R. Diamond; The Atheist, Brendan, and The Second Girl by Ronan Noone; Ryan Landry’s “M” and Psyched by Ryan Landry; Before I Leave You by Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro; The Cry of the Reed by Sinan Ünel; and Shakespeare’s Actresses in America by Rebekah Maggor.

The HPF program was founded in 2003, and now counts 35 writers as alumni to the program.

The primary focus of the program is creating relationships with writers at all stages of their careers, from emerging talent to established professionals. The program provides a framework for an in-depth, two-year artistic conversation and a long-term professional relationship. The Summer Workshop, which began in 2012, was developed through conversations with Fellows past and present to solicit ideas about how to improve and expand the program.

Since 2009, The Huntington has instituted an open application process with submissions from any writer primarily based within commuting distance of Boston; applications are currently solicited every two years.

 

View the list of previous Huntington Playwriting Fellows

 

The Huntington Playwriting Fellows program is supported by the Stanford Calderwood Fund for New American Plays and the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.