Phil Leveling & Julie King
in Adverse Effects (2016)
Playwright Residencies
@ Tesseract Theatre
The Tesseract Theatre Company is excited to offer one-year development residencies to
playwrights in the St. Louis and surrounding area.
Tesseract wants to give playwrights an opportunity to have directors, dramaturgs, actors,
and designers involved in the development process of their new work.
The goal of the residency is not to solely develop a new play, but aid in the development of the playwright.
Tesseract aims to offer traditional and non-traditional methods of new play development to writers embarking on a new project.
We want to pair the playwright with the most beneficial development process.
The process might consist of the playwright completing a draft, talking to a director, undergoing table work with actors, and ending with a staged reading at the end of the year. Or the process could consist of actors and designers talking with the playwright before page one is even written, serving as sounding boards for the playwright.
Goals of the Company
Tesseract Theatre wants St. Louis to be known as a city that champions playwrights and their work.
We know that each playwright has their own writing style and their own process of creating. We simply want to offer support and resources to that process. And have discussions about the process while the playwright is in the middle of it.
We want the playwright to 'choose their own adventure', if you will. Some writers want to meet with actors once a month and hear their words out loud and have a staged reading in front of an audience. Other writers will write seventy pages in two days and spend months talking about the philosophy of the story before re-writing a single line. We want the playwright to tell us what they need in order to reach the next step of their development. Again, it's your adventure.
We want to provide the critical feedback and participation of local and national working directors, actors, dramaturgs, choreographers, producers and/or designers to playwrights in the St. Louis area.
This residency is not just about developing a new play in under a year, but to further cement St. Louis and its playwrights in the network of new play development across the country.
Time Line of Residency
March 10 - May 15th, 2017
Applications accepted
June 1st, 2017
Two Residencies announced
July 1st, 2017 - June 1st, 2018
Duration of Residency
No fewer than 6 (six) check-ins throughout the year long residency
check-ins = Tesseract's Artistic Director and the playwright discussing the process
and choosing the next step of the writer's adventure
Early June 2018
Tesseract Theatre will offer the opportunity to the playwright to have their material
staged for an audience. It's up to the playwright. Nothing forced, nothing expected. It's about the process.
Late June 2018
Let's party! It's been a year of creating. We need pizza, clowns, lawn darts, trivial conversation, you name it. We've earned it!
Requirments for Application
- Playwright must reside in the cities or counties of St. Louis or St. Charles, Missouri
- Submit a writing sample of previous work
- Submit a one-page break down of the play/project the playwright wishes to develop
(describe (if applicable) plot of story, characters of story, themes of story, and/or message of the play)
- Submit a one-page description of development goals
(what does the playwright want to accomplish in this year-long development process)
- Submit an Artistic Statement from the playwright
NOTE: Submission materials must be uploaded on a laptop or desktop. The mobile version of this webpage doesn't support material uploads.