Script Submissions
For more than five decades, Children’s Theatre Company has shown a commitment to commissioning, developing, and producing new work written for young people and their communities.
Due to the success of these endeavors, we no longer have an open submission process. The previous submissions policy no longer serves our season planning needs and has set up expectations with playwrights that we cannot meet without creating frustration and showing unintentional disrespect to artists.
Please know that although we no longer have an open submissions process, we have increased our dedication to the due diligence of reaching out to our partners in artistic offices and agencies, attending festivals, serving on panels, traveling around the country to see shows, and to have our trusted colleagues attend shows when we cannot.
Unsolicited complete manuscripts will be accepted when submitted by professional representatives only. Please note that lawyers and law firms do not qualify as “professional representation” in this venue. Agents may submit work on behalf of their clients to the following email address: submissions@childrenstheatre.org. Email submissions only.
In the interest of offering access to local artists, playwrights who reside within the state of Minnesota are permitted to submit inquiries, synopses, and dialogue samples of up to ten pages. All materials may be submitted to the email listed above. Submitted synopses and samples will be reviewed regularly, and the CTC staff will reach out if further action is needed by the writer. Materials will not be returned or acknowledged except in cases of further interest on the part of the theatre.
In rare cases, some work will be considered on the strength of a significant professional recommendation. These submissions will be accepted on a case-by-case basis.
Children’s Theatre Company remains interested in and committed to the commissioning, development, and production of new work. This policy is designed to ensure that finding this work is carried out in a way that is targeted, efficient and consistent with CTC’s mission and aesthetic standards. CTC has a special interest in plays written by and for diverse voices, plays that center young voices, and plays written for multi-generational audiences. Adaptations will be considered if you have secured underlying rights.
Due to the number of submissions we receive, we will only respond if we are interested in a particular script or playwright.
No phone calls regarding script submissions, please.
Plays for New Audiences
Plays for New Audiences (PNA), CTC’s script licensing division, licenses quality scripts for multigenerational audiences and actors. Written by some of the world’s most extraordinary playwrights including 4 of the top 10 most-produced Theatre for Young Audiences playwrights, PNA’s 300+ show catalog features plays and musicals for any programming need. A division of Children’s Theatre Company, PNA offers contemporary stories and reimagined classics that are topical, relevant, and even fantastical. As a non-profit licensing company, all profits are invested back into supporting artists and creating new work.
Generation Now
Generation Now is a partnership working to expand the canon of work produced for multigenerational audiences and create a model of transformative partnership for the theatre field. With funding received from the Mellon Foundation in 2021, the consortium is committed to co-commission and co-develop 16 new plays by both established and emerging BIPOC artists for multigenerational audiences over five years. The partners strongly believe that if we are to have an extraordinary theatre culture in this country, we must start young, and it must be intergenerational, inclusive, inspiring, transformative, and lifelong. As part of their landmark partnership, the five Generation Now theatres (Latino Theater Company, Ma-Yi Theater Company, Native Voices, Penumbra, and Children’s Theatre Company) have awarded their first round of commissions to four incredible projects. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, Generation Now brings together five nationally ranked theaters to commission and develop new works for multigenerational audiences by both established and emerging BIPOC artists.
With funding from the Mellon Foundation in 2021, Generation Now was launched as a part of a five-theatre partnership that includes CTC, Latino Theater Company and Native Voices in Los Angeles, Ma-Yi Theater Company in New York City, and Penumbra in St. Paul. The goal of Generation Now is to expand the canon of work produced for multigenerational audiences and to create a model of transformative partnership for the theatre field. The consortium will co-commission and co-develop 16 new plays by both established and emerging BIPOC artists for multigenerational audiences over five years. The partners strongly believe that if we are to have an extraordinary theatre culture in this country, we must start young, and it must be intergenerational, inclusive, inspiring, transformative, and lifelong. Together we envision creating a lasting canon of new works for multigenerational audiences.
As a cohort, it has been an honor to explore the limitless potential of creating new work for multi-generational audiences. Collaborating with our brilliant playwrights to dive into new realms of storytelling has given us immense pride. Generation Now stories are stories of community, bravery, identity, and encompass the journeys of young people and their families from a vast array of perspectives and backgrounds. It is our mission to not only expand the canon of theatre for multigenerational audiences, but to do so with intention for authentic representation of the communities both on and off the stage that our stories explore.
Drawing Lessons
Drawing Lessons by Michi Barall, co-commissioned by Ma-Yi Theater Company (New York, New York) and Children’s Theatre Company (Minneapolis, Minnesota), is the first of the Generation Now commissions to receive a full production.
Drawing Lessons commission timeline:
- January 2023: Drawing Lessons received a workshop in Minneapolis at Children’s Theatre Company.
- April 2023: Drawing Lessons received a workshop in New York City at Ma-Yi Theater Company (during Generation Now’s Annual Convening).
- June 2023: Drawing Lessons received a reading in New York at Ma-Yi Theater Company.
- July 2023: Drawing Lessons received a reading in New York at Ma-Yi Theater Company.
- October 25-29, 2023: Drawing Lessons received a workshop in Minneapolis at Children’s Theatre Company.
- October 8-November 10, 2024: The world premiere of Drawing Lessons took place in Minneapolis at Children’s Theatre Company, under the direction of Jack Tamburri.
“Ma-Yi Theater has a long history working with Michi Barall, both as performer and writer, so we are thrilled to have her as the first commissioned playwright of Generation Now,” stated Ma-Yi Theater Artistic Director Ralph Peña. “Peter [Brosius] and I are very excited by Michi’s script Drawing Lessons, which uses a mix of offbeat characters, great humor, and graphic illustrations to bring us into the fertile mind of a young girl.”
In Drawing Lessons, experience the energy of a graphic novelist’s imagination at work! Dynamic, jump-off-the-page animation shows Kate’s manhwa storyboards coming together, even as she deals with school, friends, and how her Korean heritage fits into her American lifestyle. Will her contentious friendship with Paul help or hinder her progress? Will either of them ever find their true artistic voice? Get drawn into this innovative story that magically takes place both on stage and on screen!
“I am so excited to share this celebration of the world of comic art and the unique artistic voice of Kate, the play’s 12-year-old Korean American protagonist,” said playwright Michi Barall. “A love letter to Minneapolis and its diversity, I’m especially happy that the first run of Drawing Lessons will take place at CTC.”
Michi Barall is a New York City-based actor, playwright, and academic. As an actor Michi has worked extensively in theatres in New York and across the country. Michi’s dance-theatre piece, Rescue Me, was produced at the Ohio Theatre by Ma-Yi in 2010. Her music-theatre adaptation of Peer Gynt, Peer Gynt and The Norwegian Hapa Band, premiered in 2107 at the ART/NY Theatre. Michi holds degrees from Stanford University, NYU (M.F.A., Grad Acting) and Columbia (PhD, Theatre/English & Comparative Literature). She has taught at Columbia, NYU, and MIT and is currently on the faculty at Purchase College.
About the Partners
Native Voices
Founded in 1993 and in residence at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles since 1999, Native Voices provides an artistic home for Native American theatre artists, supporting the development and production of new works for the stage written by American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and First Nations playwrights. Native Voices is the only professional theatre company—deemed such for its affiliation with the Actors’ Equity Association, the union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers—dedicated exclusively to Native storytelling. From the beginning, Native Voices has put Native narratives at the center of the American story in order to facilitate a more inclusive dialogue on what it means to be American. The company fills a tremendous need for more diverse representation among playwrights, actors, and theatre professionals and for the exploration of a broader range of themes and issues on the American stage. In the long-term, Native Voices remains committed to developing Native playwrights and theatre artists, to telling Native stories by and about Native people, and to providing the public access to these plays and playwrights—all with the goals of fostering greater understanding and respect and of showcasing artistic voices that might otherwise not be heard. With this project, Native Voices looks forward to having their playwrights seen by audiences in theatres that have historically produced little to no Native work. TheAutry.org/NativeVoices
Latino Theater Company
Latino Theater Company’s mission is to provide a world-class arts center for those pursuing artistic excellence; a laboratory where both tradition and innovation are honored and honed; and a place where the convergence of people, cultures, and ideas contribute to a more vibrant future. LTC was founded in 1985 with the goal to establish a theater company dedicated to contributing new stories and novel methods of expression for the American theater repertoire and to increase artistic opportunities for underserved communities. As the company has evolved, its role as the lease-holder of the Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC) has become critical to their mission. With a continuing exploration of the U.S. Latina/o/x experience in bold and contemporary terms, LTC programs its seasons with work by local playwrights that speaks to important issues and highlights new voices within the Latina/o/x, First Nation, Black, Asian American, Jewish American, and LGBTQ+ communities. This project will allow writers to create Latina/o/x stories specifically for multigenerational audiences, solidifying LTC’s outreach efforts and strengthening their relationship with the thousands of students they serve every year. latinotheaterco.org
Ma-Yi Theater Company
Ma-Yi Theater Company is an award-winning professional theater based in New York City, renowned as the premier incubator for new works by Asian American playwrights. They encourage their artists to engage communities in vigorous dialogues that challenge popular prescriptions for culturally specific theater, and that reexamine the immigrant histories that 12 shaped our country. Ma-Yi Theater Company is one of the very few BIPOC-led theaters in the country whose original works have transferred to major regional theaters around the country. Ma-Yi’s Writers Lab has 34 professional writers, including Michael Lew and Rehana Lew Mirza who are on their fifth year of residency at Ma-Yi Theater, through the Mellon’s NPRP initiative. Many of the most produced Asian American playwrights today are members of the Lab, including Lauren Yee, Kimber Lee, Jiehae Park, Lloyd Suh, Qui Nguyen, Sam Chanse, and Madhuri Shakar to name a few. These playwrights are changing the landscape of American Theater to redraw the boundaries for what it considers part of the American canon. While there has been progress in creating a body of new plays by Asian American writers, many of them cater to mature audiences; very few are for multigenerational consumption. This opportunity to co-develop new works for multigenerational audiences will allow Ma-Yi to offer communities a new genre of theater that is more inclusive. ma-yitheatre.org
Penumbra
Penumbra is recognized nationally and internationally for its artistically excellent and socially responsible art that illuminates the human condition through prisms of the Black experience. Founded in 1976 by celebrated scholar Lou Bellamy in Saint Paul, Minnesota, this legacy institution has earned national accolades, producing nearly 200 plays, over 30 premieres, and cultivating generations of artists of color now working across the nation. Since 2011, President Sarah Bellamy has been testing multigenerational programs that spark empathy and drive engagement with public conversations, screenings, and community meals that engage patrons across Minnesota. Through her leadership, Penumbra brings vibrant communities together to shift the ground under some of the most deeply entrenched issues of equity and justice. Today, Penumbra is embarking upon its next life cycle: a performing arts campus and center for racial healing that nurtures black artists, advances equity, and facilitates wellness for individuals and community. penumbratheatre.org
Children’s Theatre Company
Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) is the nation’s largest and most acclaimed theatre for young people and serves a multigenerational audience. It creates theatre experiences that educate, challenge, and inspire nearly 250,000 people annually. CTC is the only theatre focused on young audiences to win the Special Tony® Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and is the only theatre in Minnesota to receive three Tony® nominations (for its production of A Year with Frog and Toad). CTC is committed to creating world-class productions at the highest level and to developing new works, more than 200 to date, dramatically changing the canon of work for young audiences. CTC is the most significant provider of theatre education opportunities in the region. Every year, thousands of children experience theatre for the first time at CTC. Our student matinees and education programs demonstrably benefit the community, from the intergenerational conversations sparked by our world premieres, to the sequential skill-building that happens in our Theatre Arts Training, to the pre-K focus of our Early Childhood Initiative. ACT One is CTC’s comprehensive platform for access, diversity, and inclusion in our audiences, programs, staff, 13 and board that strives to ensure the theatre is a home for all people, all families, reflective of our community.