From April 1 to May 31, 2019, the Baltimore Playwrights Festival will be accepting submissions of new, unproduced plays from local Maryland and DC playwrights.

Here are highlights of some changes from past years:

• This year, we will be accepting only 50 play submissions. Once we have qualified the first 50, no others will be accepted.
• The era of postal mail is officially over for the BPF. To submit a play, visit our Online Submission Form — but only after you have read about the Process and the Guidelines!
• Likewise, payment of the $10 submission fee will be done via our website, as part of the submission process.

As always, our BPF Librarians will be handling play submissions and coordinating the work of our reader/evaluators. If you have any questions or difficulties, please contact them: [email protected].

And, speaking of reader/evaluators… if you are involved in theatre — as actor, director, producer, playwright, or even just a serious playgoer — we encourage your to sign up to become a BPF reader/evaluator. Individuals are assigned one or more plays to read, and asked to complete an evaluation form for each afterward. You may read and evaluate just one, or as many as want!  A brief training is provided.  Sign up via our mailing list, indicating your interest in this role, OR email [email protected].  Do it today!

Join us for a full production of this new musical by Jody Nusholtz (book and lyrics) and Sonia Rutstein (music and lyrics), directed by Miriam Bazensky. 

Liz is already unraveling when she and her boyfriend Harry arrive at her cousin Eric’s for Thanksgiving dinner. Expecting a marriage proposal, Liz enlists Eric’s help in deflecting the question, but bigger questions arise when a stranger stopping by turns out to be the lesbian ex-lover Liz wasn’t ready for in her freshman year of college.

Windows on Our World: Scenes from New Plays will be presented on October 24th as part of this year’s Baltimore Free Fall Festival. The staged readings of scenes from plays submitted for our 38th Season will take place on Wednesday, October 24, 8 p.m. at Fells Point Corner Theatre, 251 South Ann Street, Baltimore, MD 21231. There is metered street parking on Broadway. Free tickets can be reserved at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/windows-on-our-world-scenes-from-new-plays-tickets-49909127544

This year we will present scenes from:

Blues in the Night (from Fixing Mother’s Day) by Cliff Blake
Failure by Kevin Kostic
Just in Time by Ted Slotnik
Passaggio Oscuro – Dark Passage by Rosemary Frisino Toohey
Personal Histories by Jerry Slaff
Poe, the Play by Greg Jenkins
That Woman by Bill Triplett
The Hebrew Ladies Burial Society by Cronshi Englander

Free Fall Baltimore is made possible by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and the generous contributions of BGE, American Trading & Production Corporation (Atapco), and The Henry and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Foundation.www.Freefallbaltimore.org.

The second presentation of The Baltimore Playwrights Festival’s 37th Season will be Unlucky Soldiers by Robert Garcia, opening on September 8th. Unlucky Soldiers is directed by Barry Feinstein and produced by Theatrical Mining Company at The Downtown Cultural Arts Center, 401 North Howard Street (corner of Howard and Mulberry), Baltimore, MD  21201.  Performances will be matinees only at 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, September 8th through September 23rd. Admission is $10 (veterans free). For further information, go to http://www.theatricalmining. org/

Andre Regal is returning home from his combat tour in Vietnam. Unbeknownst to him, he is coming home with an uninvited guest for a final role of the dice. Don’t miss this semi-autobiographical play of one soldier’s battle for survival.

Robert Garcia was raised in Galveston, Texas and has lived in Baltimore, Maryland since 1971. He served in the 101st Airborne “Screaming Eagles” during the Vietnam War. Robert has been writing most of his life, moving to playwrighting in recent years. Among his plays are Concrete Jungle, The Devil Within, and Requiem for a Soldier. Robert currently produces new plays at Robert’s Black Box with the Theatrical Mining Company at the Downtown Cultural Arts Center in Baltimore.