It’s the most competitive, cut-throat month of the year. One of the month’s biggest competitions started last week – college basketball’s aptly named, March Madness.  And, of course, there’s the even bigger competition to see who can best guess the results of college basketball’s aptly named, March Madness (my bracket isn’t doing too well…let’s go Gonzaga!)  But there’s more to this month’s competitive nature than just jump shots and alley-oops.  As you know, March also marks the first pints consumed at the National Homebrew Competition.  They are clipping, filing and painting like mad at NAILS in their search for the Next Top Nail Artist.  And who could turn their calendar to March without thinking of sparks flying at the annual Welding Competition?

Yes, March certainly has her fair share of competitions and contests, but we thought there might be room for one more.

Thats why last week we announced the 2015 Emerging Playwrights Contest, a new play contest that OHenry Productions is organizing with a new and exciting arts/education non-profit, The Dennis & Victoria Ross Foundation (DVRF).

Our play contest seeks new work from talented playwrights that haven’t yet made it into the public eye.  After we finish reading all of the submissions, we will be picking one lucky winner and producing a developmental staged reading of their script this summer in New York.  Now there’s something worth all of this madness.

If you or someone you know wants to submit, check out the Official Contest Announcement.

We are excited to bring one of these scripts to New York this summer,  but we can already tell that picking just one winner is going to be challenging.  Moreover, our contest only accepts full-length plays, but there are plenty of short plays, musicals, and one acts that deserve to be performed in front of an audience as well.  The good news is that there are a host of other playwriting contests throughout the year which help to get new work out in the public eye.  We wanted to highlight some additional resources that exist to promote such opportunities.

Play Submission Helper  and NYC Playwrights are excellent blogs that compile submission opportunities from all over the internet and put them into a single list. The Playwrights’ Center is an amazing resource that not only provides its members with information on submission opportunities, but also offers other developmental and educational programs and services for playwrights.  Lastly, Emerging Playwright is a similar service whose slogan speaks for itself – “No Agent. No Problem.”

You’ve got a free ride during this mad month to be as competitive as you want.  Now that you know where to find these contests, go out there and win one, just like Riley (below) did last week!