Changes to the NJPL Residencies
After much consideration, we have determined that we can have a deeper impact and better serve playwrights if we shift the model of our Residencies towards one that is built upon a foundation of partnerships with other NJ theatres and arts organizations. Our Residencies are lengthy, rigorous, and demanding, and we envision that the process will be more rewarding for playwrights if there is a producing entity invested in the development of the play.
As putting these partnerships in place will require much time and resources on the part of our collective, we will only be selecting 1-3 plays for our 2024 Residency. Due to this, in an effort to value everyone’s time, we will be making some changes to the submission eligibility for the 2024 submission process.
If we are familiar with your work, either through a previous Residency submission, or through one of our other programs (PlayGym, Foundations, or a Script Consultation), please ONLY submit if you receive an invitation requesting a submission. These invitations will go out via email by October 15th, 2023. If we are NOT familiar with your work (and you have not previously submitted to our residency), please DO submit and follow the submission guidelines below.
We remain committed to serving all NJ-based playwrights, regardless of career level. Over the past two years, we have expanded our programming and our collective of dramaturgs. We have made every effort to keep the cost of our fee-based programs affordable, and have tried to be responsive to what we deem as the needs of the field. One of our core values is to value people and their time and artistry. If you are a NJ based playwright or dramaturg and want to discuss how our programming and our collective might support you in your artistry, reach out to us at info@njplaylab.org. We will arrange time to talk about what is possible.
About the NJPL Residencies
The New Jersey Play Lab Residencies are intensive, long-term development processes, designed to bring the selected plays to a state of production readiness.
As one of its core values, The New Jersey Play Lab is structured to allow us to encounter and engage with plays at all stages of development and to be truly responsive to the needs of each selected play in achieving a state of production readiness.
While some plays may benefit from a twelve to eighteen month process, others may make that leap in as little as a few weeks. Therefore, as a measure of our dedication to meet each play where it is, the scope and length of each Residency is established based upon the stage of development and needs of the play, and the level of craft and the aesthetic of the playwright.
Additionally, the number of plays selected will be dependent on the needs of each play, our capacity, and the specifics of any partnership, and will vary in each biannual residency period.
Although our residencies may include readings and workshops with actors and directors, the bulk of the work in the NJPL residency process is with dramaturgs. We are not producers. We are hands-on collaborators in a dramaturgical laboratory.
What makes our Residency different?
Whereas other development opportunities are designed to move a play forward as much as is possible within the time frame of a given program, through our Residencies, we are committed to continuing to work on a play until all collaborators feel it is production-ready. This approach serves to condense the play development process without sacrificing the quality of the journey or the results.
Once again, we are not producers. Although we do offer our writers on-going support and facilitate connections to identify potential theatrical homes for the production of their work, our residencies do not culminate in a backer’s audition, or anything of the sort. Our focus remains on play development throughout. What we offer is intensive, sustained dramaturgical expertise through a particular approach that we call hands-on-dramaturgy.
For more information on how we define production-ready and hands-on-dramaturgy, please visit our What We Do page.
What do we look for in a Residency playwright?
Our residencies are currently limited to playwrights who have clearly established New Jersey as a literal or an artistic home. If you do not meet this criteria, please consider one of our other programs that are open to playwrights and dramaturgs beyond NJ.
Commitment to the Residency is a commitment to the idea that the development of the given play is a priority in the playwrights’ life, alongside but not beneath their other commitments. Playwrights should have a flexible schedule that allows for intense work over an extended time period. It is crucial to the process that playwrights be able to commit to intense work with momentum. We ask our playwrights to prioritize our work together as much as other paying work. The time frame we establish can be very flexible and accommodating, but the intensity can not.
Because our approach to the work is grounded in craft, in questioning and conversation, and in ongoing revision, we have found that having certain experiences, skills, or innate abilities make a playwright most suited for our Residency process.
Attributes we look for in a playwright:
- The playwright is able to use language (technical or not) to describe what exists in their play and what they still hope to capture (language of craft). They may not use the same language we use, but they have a language/understanding of craft that we can learn/share in.
- The playwright has an understanding of how they work, and a process by which they generate and revise, and is excited and energized by the prospect of rewriting/reimagining.
- The playwright has an understanding of the intended audience for the play, and whether that audience is targeted or more expansive.
- The playwright has experience participating in or auditing professional developmental processes OR demonstrates an innate understanding of a professional developmental process, OR has other applicable life or work experience.
- The playwright has a genuine desire to work in a process that thrives on collaboration and rigor, and is open to engaging in discussion around their work.
- The playwright expresses and demonstrates a commitment to the art and profession of playwriting.
Please note, we do not believe that experience should be a gatekeeping mechanism. We have worked with playwrights at many stages of their careers who have embodied these skills and attributes.
Or more accurately, what are the attributes of a playwright most suited for our Residency process? Because the way we work is grounded in craft, in questioning and conversation, and in ongoing revision, we have found that having certain experiences, skills, or innate abilities help create useful partnerships in the Residency process.
Qualities & Abilities we look for in a playwright:
- The playwright is able to use language (technical or not) to describe what exists in their play and what they still hope to capture (language of craft). They may not use the same language we use, but they have a language/understanding of craft that we can learn/share in.
- The playwright has an understanding of how they work, and a process by which they generate and revise, and is excited and energized by the prospect of rewriting/reimagining.
- The playwright has an understanding of the intended audience for the play, and whether that audience is targeted or more expansive.
- The playwright has experience participating in or auditing professional developmental processes OR demonstrates an innate understanding of a professional developmental process, OR has other applicable life or work experience.
- The playwright has a genuine desire to work in a process that thrives on collaboration and rigor, and is open to engaging in discussion around their work.
- The playwright expresses and demonstrates a commitment to the art and profession of playwriting.
Please note, we do not believe that experience should be a gatekeeping mechanism. We have worked with playwrights at many stages of their careers who have embodied these skills and attributes.
What type of play should I submit?
Full-length plays in all stages of active development will be considered. We welcome early drafts. In fact, a play does not even need to be completed to be considered, as long as there is enough material to assess the potential of the work. In the case of an incomplete play as a submission, a playwright may be asked to supply a completed work as support material.
What do we look for in a Residency play?
Art is deeply personal and thus highly subjective; taste is not static, and what we feel for one play we may not feel for another seemingly similar play. Our selection process is not geared toward identifying the best plays per say, but rather toward identifying the plays to which we feel we can bring the insight, inspiration, and curiosity necessary to be good collaborators. All that being said,we do believe in the value of trying to be as explicit as we can about what currently guides us in selecting plays to work on.
This is not a checklist, nor is it a “how-to.” It does not connote empirical quality or intrinsic value judgments of any play. It is merely a collection of attributes that we have identified amongst the plays we have felt pulled towards in the past.
- We are committed to artistic excellence in craft above all else, recognizing the many traditions and styles that can inhabit and inform craft*.
- We gravitate toward contemplative theatre as opposed to consumptive theatre; plays of substance that instigate thought long after the curtain has fallen. However, we firmly believe that just because a play is about something important doesn’t automatically make it an important, or well-structured play.
- We believe that well-told stories come in all voices and styles.
- We are drawn to work with the potential to resonate beyond its immediate story and circumstances to illuminate or explore a larger, more expansive idea, and we believe that plays which reside in the gray areas of morality and impulse are the plays poised to have the greatest impact.
- We gravitate toward plays that are ambitious, either in an attempt at something new/challenging/complex or by excelling at an established form, as well as plays that challenge our preconceived notions and pose questions as opposed to providing answers.
- We are attracted to plays that have a textured language that lifts the text off of the page, a theatricality that embraces the medium of the stage (i.e. it couldn’t equally be a film), and a heart that seeks to move us by expressing something specifically or deeply human.
*A note: While we are most familiar with and experienced with plays that come from a Western/European tradition, we are also interested in working on plays that come from other playwriting traditions. We are actively building our knowledge of other cultural dramaturgies. If your play comes from or is inspired by a writing tradition we may not be familiar with, please feel free to be explicit in telling us.
* For further explanation of how we define and describe “craft”, please visit our FAQ page.
How can I apply?
There is one submission process for all Residencies. Finalists for all Residencies will be selected from this same pool of submissions.
To apply, please fill out this form.
Please be prepared to submit the following as separate PDFs:
- A brief cover letter
- If you have participated in any previous NJPL programming, and thus received an invitation to apply this year, please make note of this in your cover letter (although this in no way with influence our selection process).
- Your resume
- The first 20 pages of the play you would like to work on during the Residency.
- In one PDF Document:
- A synopsis of the play outlining the entire plot (not a summary or marketing blurb);
- A character breakdown for the play (note doubling)
- The development history of the play
Please limit your submission to one play.
Please address any questions to info@njplaylab.org.
More questions?
Check out our FAQ!
The New Jersey Play Lab 