A Tale of Three Playwriting Awards

A Tale of Three Playwriting Awards

or, how is the state of American new play development these days, anyway?

It's was a Friday.

I was a semi-finalist for the Premiere Stages Reading Series at Keane University, which goes up June 5th-7th. If I was selected as one of the four finalists, I'd get a reading and a thousand dollars. If I won best in the festival, I could get four thousand dollars and a full production.

I was in a purgatory of my own making: I had not asked for a decision timeline at the semi-finalist interview three weeks earlier. I tell friends, "Well, if I'm not in New Jersey by June 1st, I guess I'll know for sure whether I got it or not!" I have been refreshing my email every two hours. I at least got the dopamine hit of being announced as a semi-finalist on Instagram, something I didn't realize was a big deal until I learn how many people applied to this opportunity in the first place: 894. I'm one of 65 semi-finalists. With that reveal, I can more accurately assess how I should temper my expectations: there's no fuckin' way.

And today it arrives: the blessed rejection email. In it is a very nice note from one of the staff, some feedback I actually find helpful, and a sigh of relief because now I can start planning around that weekend.

It's still that Friday.

Six months earlier, I applied to one of my favorite kinds of playwriting opportunities, a set-it-and-forget-it. In this case, it was the Woodward/Newman Award, which I sent in around the same time as Premiere Stages, six months ago. It's one of those opportunities that it would be nice to get: three thousand dollars and a full production as part of their Mainstage theater season.

Set-it-and-forget-it opps are great because I don't refresh my email about it, however, the unexpected but inevitable reply can make a bad day worse, if you're not lucky. Most of the time it can be water off a duck's back, but I've been victim to stepping on my own landmines in the past. The only reason I keep doing it is that sometimes, very rarely, they come back with GOOD news, and let me tell you, I feel like a dog finding a loaded cheeseburger on the sidewalk on those days.

Two hours after I get the rejection email from Premiere Stages, I get another one from the Woodward/Newman Award. In this email, similarly, I find out how many people had applied: almost 3,000. In the email, they reassure me that, "resubmitting the same work is certainly permitted – play selection from such a large pool of entrants is never a perfect process and we recognize that great plays can (and inevitably do) fall through the cracks." I am not sure if this is supposed to make me feel better. I go back to not thinking about it.

It's two weeks earlier.

I forget why, but I'm looking up the Yale Drama Series Award. This one is a big one: $10,000 and a publishing deal at Yale Press. At the top of the webpage, it reads: "Yale University Press has made the difficult decision to conclude the Yale Drama Series Prize after the 2026 award year." I had applied for the 2026 award back in August 2025, where they told me I was one of 2,000 applicants. I felt like a passerby peering into a closed Macy's window display full of Successful Playwrights, looking at a scene where the mannequins are still there but the lights are off. I click to a different opportunity instead.

It's that Friday again.

Word has gotten out about the Yale Drama Series Award. I get DMs from friends, "did you see this?" Yeah, two weeks ago? Are we surprised? I was one of 3,000 applicants. I was one of 2,000 applicants. I was one of 65 semi-finalists. All of us scrabbling like dogs at a tall, tall fence.