Earlier this month, I spent a week in Saint Paul, Minnesota workshopping my new play, The Quilted Heart at Playwrights’ Center. I’ve done workshops before, but this one felt different. I found myself taking bigger risks, trusting my instincts more, and leaning on collaborators in ways I never had before. By the end of the week, I’d added thirty pages, rewritten the third act, and left feeling like I’d finally begun to step into my power as a playwright. Looking back now, I think I finally understand why.

Set goals before beginning.

Coming into the process, I knew there were specific things I wanted to work on. So, my director and I beforehand and made an ambitious list of six things we wanted to tackle. That list shaped every rehearsal. No wasted time, no wandering. Instead, we structured our days and built exercises around those questions. And by the end of the process, we had figured out a brand-new song, I added several new scenes, and the play was singing in a way I’d only imagined.

Your goals can always shift, but taking the time to name them gives your workshop direction.

Take big swings.

One day during rehearsal, I turned to my director and said, “Can I ramble at you for a minute?” She agreed, and I started to lay out this wild concept for the third act that I’d been thinking about. Actually, it was about three different ideas that didn’t have a solid foundation, just intuition and theatrical vibes. I finished my diatribe with, “But I know we don’t have much time left, so I’ll probably save that for next time.” She looked at me, “When’s next time?”

Damn. She was right.

Development opportunities don’t come around often. If you’ve got an idea, if you’ve got pages, if there’s a wild concept you want to explore, DO IT.

Listen to the people, not just the text.

During rehearsal, actors, of course, shared observations about their characters (they can be your best dramaturgs!), but what I found just as valuable were moments where they simply told me how the play made them feel, what it made them grapple with. It’s some of the most generous feedback you can receive.

Listen not only to what people think about your play, but to the effect it has on them. That is the humanity in your play at work.

Think outside the box. Go beyond the page.

I had a structural issue with the play. There were three acts, three different timelines, and a few different dramaturgical/theatrical devices at work in the play. And something wasn’t working. The play didn’t move how I wanted it to. The sense of a journey wasn’t quite there.

So, we literally pulled it apart. We spread the play across the floor. We studied how it moved. We played with rearranging scenes. In a play about quilting, we were literally quilting the play together.

And then I noticed a break in pattern, which led me to discover:

I had the right moment…in the wrong place.

I realized that the inciting incident, which kicked off my protagonist’s journey had already been resolved halfway through the play.

So, I found the page with the moment of premature resolution, tore it in half, and moved it. All of a sudden, all the patterns worked. The play had momentum, cohesion, and the sense of a full journey. This gave me the fuel I needed to go home and rewrite a fire third act.

When a play isn’t building the way you want it to, get your hands dirty. Stop staring at pages and start looking at the whole shape. You may already have the right moments, just not in the right order.

Lean into the uncomfortable feeling.

Early on in my career, there’d be moments in a workshop when an actor’s face would scrunch up, they’d look entirely confused. They’d raise their hand and I’d break out in a cold sweat, thinking: “This is it. This is the moment that the room—nay, the entire world figures out I’m a fraud!” I saw it as a personal failing. If I was actually a good writer, there wouldn’t be any questions. Oh God, what are they gonna say that’s gonna completely break the play??

To share your writing is one of the most vulnerable human acts. But dear playwright, release yourself of having to have all the answers. And know that your story is worth telling. D’you know how precious life is?? Them people would not be here in this room right now if they really thought they were wasting their time.

Now, my favorite thing is to see a look of confusion on an actor’s face. Because what I’ve learned is that confusion isn’t some big personal failure, it’s an opportunity for clarity. It actually means so much is working that now we can go even deeper.

Don’t fear the questions. They’re often the doorway to a better play.

Make room to be inspired.

One night after rehearsal, instead of going home to write, I rallied my tired ass and went to see a new musical, My Ántonia at Theater Latté Da (it’s still running, and very good, go see it!). The show reminded me of the power and possibility of theatre, and I left energized and inspired instead of depleted. Gave me the boost I needed to go home and keep writing.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for your work is step away from it and experience someone else’s.

The Universe will work exactly how it’s supposed to.

We were scheduled to cap off the week of work with a free public reading that had long been advertised. The morning of the reading comes, and one of our actors ends up needing to go to Urgent Care (They are okay!). And we are now needing to reconsider what that day will look like. Playwrights’ Center heroes found an actor to come in with literally less than an hour notice, and the reading went off without a hitch. It truly was a beautiful event, by the way.

But what surprised me was realizing that even if the reading hadn’t happened, I still would’ve left Minnesota feeling profoundly fulfilled. It was an unforgettable week of community and art and revelations and good coffee. We used our time well. We laughed, cried, and connected. We did a lot of amazing work on a banger of a play. And that was enough.

All that to say:

Get rid of expectations. Control the work and let go of outcomes.

Big Takeaways:

Theatre doesn’t fully exist until it enters a room with other people. You can’t find your whole play sitting at your desk. This is why throughout my career, I keep returning to the phrase, “Writing can be a solitary act, but creating theatre can’t.”

Find collaborators who challenge you, delight you, nerd out with you, and care about the work as deeply as you do. When you find your people, your work will shine its brightest, it will go further, and you’ll step into the best versions of yourselves together (Shout out Signe V. Harriday!).

New works institutions are the lifeblood of theatre. As I wrap up my third year in the Core Writer Program, what becomes clearer by the day is if the theatre is to survive, and new voices are to rise to remind us what it is to be human, to fight oppressive systems, and to dream our best future, it is in no small part because of institutions that invest in playwrights and their work—particularly the unstoppable folks over at 710 Raymond Ave.

My new play The Quilted Heart is available to read on New Play Exchange.

Read The Quilted Heart

More Articles by Andrew Lee Creech

There are several dope opps like IAMA Emerging Playwrights Lab who haven’t dropped their open application dates yet. So be sure to check back in the coming weeks, as we will definitely be updating as those start to come in!

UPDATED 6/29 - Now with 80+ opportunities, including New Dramatists’ window!

Submission Opportunities Jul - Aug 2026

154KB ∙ PDF file

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Happy Submitting!

NOW hol’ up…

You’ve got your submission lists, but how’s that resume looking? For a refresh or tips on creating one for the first time, peep the guide below.

Also, if there are dope submission opportunities that you’d like to be included in future lists, please share below (I will vet all submissions):

Share an Opportunity with the Community

Note: I’m not interested in gatekeeping resources, so these and future submission opps will be free posts—all you have to do is be a subscriber at any level! And if you value my work and want to help me continue to make submission lists (bigger and better), and other resources available, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. 🙏🏾

UPDATED 5/31 - 90+ OPPORTUNITIES

Submission Opportunities May - Jun 2026

187KB ∙ PDF file

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Happy Submitting!

NOW hol’ up…

You’ve got your submission lists, but how’s that resume looking? For a refresh or tips on creating one for the first time, peep the guide below.

Also, if there are dope submission opportunities that you’d like to be included in future lists, please share below (I will vet all submissions):

Share an Opportunity with the Community

Note: I’m not interested in gatekeeping resources, so these and future submission opps will be free posts—all you have to do is be a subscriber at any level! And if you value my work and want to help me continue to make submission lists (bigger and better), and other resources available, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. 🙏🏾

Check back in next month, and I’ll drop a message in the chat or send an email when updates come in.

As always, make sure to hit the download button underneath the image to get access to a PDF with clickable links.

UPDATED 3/11/2026 - Added 20 more opps, including Page 73 and the New American Play Festival.

Submission Opportunities Mar - Apr 2026

182KB ∙ PDF file

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Happy Submitting!

NOW hol’ up…

You’ve got your submission lists, but how’s that resume looking? For a refresh or tips on creating one for the first time, peep the guide below.

Also, if there are dope submission opportunities that you’d like to be included in future lists, please share below (I will vet all submissions):

Share an Opportunity with the Community

Note: I’m not interested in gatekeeping resources, so these and future submission opps will be free posts—all you have to do is be a subscriber at any level! And if you value my work and want to help me continue to make submission lists (bigger and better), and other resources available, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. 🙏🏾

Recently, I was given some pretty extreme, unsolicited feedback on a play of mine. Feedback that took me waaaay too long to unpack. After ten days of spiraling and working through my feelings, I finally arrived at some clarity and peace.

I’m grateful for the experience because it forced me to interrogate how I receive and engage with feedback and helped me rediscover my confident center. I want to distill what I learned in hopes that it saves you some time, energy, and mental stress.

Whether I’m engaging in the Liz Lerman method, am in a workshop setting, or just getting off the cuff critique, here are four questions that I ask myself when I’m receiving feedback.

Is this feedback in my play’s universe?

The truth is: everyone engaging with your work is going to have an opinion about what the play is and how it should flow. So, when receiving feedback, I have to sus out if this note is about clarity or personal taste. And is this feedback about the play that exists before us or is it feedback based on the version in their head? In Marvel Cinematic Universe terms, whenever a play is born, a multiverse is created—a million different variations of my play and its characters can exist, and when other people start engaging with it, they can create and add their own universe—complete with character variants and a tweaked chain of events—to the multiverse.

Everybody has their favorite Spider-Man.

So, I have to decipher…what is my universe’s Earth designation? Let’s call it Earth-616. Then, does their feedback live on Earth-616 or is it from Earth-838? And if it something about the feedback rings true to me, how can I bring it into my Earth-616 effectively?

But we want to be careful when considering feedback that lives in a different universe. A way to tack this for ourselves might be by asking…

Does this feedback change the intention of my play?

Only we truly know the story we are trying to tell (mostly). Our fellow collaborators or readers only have puzzle pieces, when we’ve got the box cover will the full image on it. So when processing a piece of feedback, we have to ask, “How does this feedback change the picture on the box?” Does it deepen or sharpen what I’m trying to do or say with the play? Or does it change the intention?

When we makes changes based on feedback that’s not aligned with the original intention, the play can become something different. Take for example this trailer for elf, recut as a psychological thriller film.

Just by shifting the POV of the storytelling, adding some sound and titles, and a few edits, the classic holiday family comedy becomes a full on psychological thriller.

What we decide to focus on changes the tone, the meaning, and the intention.

But not all feedback lives in a different universe. In some cases, a person can be giving good feedback that lives in our universe, we just have to learn to listen and interpret what’s being said. We have to get good at figuring out…

What is this person actually saying?

Sometimes people have the ability to perfectly articulate the thing they want to critique and it’s beautiful. Sometimes they don’t. In those “don’t” cases, they may be diagnosing a symptom and not the root cause of the issue. For example, I might get feedback that the ending of the play doesn’t work. What that person may actually be sensing is that crucial information in an earlier scene is either absent or too vague. Or two characters needed to connect more, or throughout the play, the dominoes just didn’t fall in the right way to authentically earn the emotional resonance or catharsis or thematic hit at the end.

We can work with that! Now we can go back through the script and look closely at what David Ball in his best-selling book on script-analysis, Backwards & Forwards, calls “triggers & heaps.” We can track the play’s action all the way back to the beginning to pinpoint where our dominoes stopped falling.

So, we have to get good at hearing what’s being said and translating it into an actionable next step.

But to be honest, we’ve also gotta be asking…

Who is giving this feedback?

Everyone giving feedback has their own interests and specialties. So, asking who is giving this feedback gives you a chance to really consider the source and the ways in which they might be more or less helpful.

Case in point. I really love getting character specific feedback from actors. They can be your best dramaturgs for character because they inhabit characters, trying to breathe life into them, and they want that internal life to be rich and full and true. The insights they have can be game changing. And the way they catch little inconsistencies is lifesaving.

Talkback audiences can be great at letting you know how a piece or moment emotionally lands with them. They can also tell you if the dominoes are falling how you want them to. I love hearing audience feedback even though you have to work a little harder to wrangle them, otherwise, they will re-write your play for you.

Just a couple examples of how different kinds of folks can offer different perspectives with feedback, which can be great.

Conversely, not all feedback is created equal. Some can come with blind spots. Consider how identity plays into the feedback. If I’m a Black playwright writing a story and characters steeped in Black culture, then somebody who’s identity exists outside of the Black community and who doesn’t have the same cultural fluency will have a higher likelihood of offering feedback that doesn’t hold water, and in some instances, can actually be harmful, dismissive, and dehumanizing. This person may be a great theatre artist and a new play development whiz, but if they lack the cultural pre-requisites, then you have to account for that.

I was gonna come up with a clever caption for this meme of Kenan Thompson here, but instead, I just want you to imagine somebody boldly suggesting something waaay out of pocket, inappropriate, and culturally misinformed about your play.

Great. Now just look at Kenan.

Nasty work.

The Tool Box

Here are a bunch of tools, strategies, and offerings for you to consider when engaging with feedback.

1. Save an older draft. In a play’s lifecycle/development, it can go through lots of iterations and transformations. Something you cut could always come back, in its original form or in a new one. I think about how Ashman and Menken cut the song “We’ll Have Tomorrow” from Little Shop of Horrors, but revived one line of it in the finale as homage.

2. Trust your lived experience. This is even more important for writers from historically excluded groups. Speaking as a Black person, our expertise is often ignored or disregarded when it comes from lived experience rather than formal education. Don’t let somebody tell you that your experience doesn’t count for anything.

3. Take a breath. Then take a pause. Receiving feedback is one of the hardest things to do as a playwright. Sharing your writing is an incredibly vulnerable act, and getting that critiqued can be very emotionally charged. When you receive a particularly challenging piece of feedback, remember to breathe. It’s okay to take a pause. Know that you don’t have to act on it right away. You can take time to thoroughly think through a piece of feedback. It also helps me to try to remember the second agreement of Don Miguel Ruiz’s classic, The Four Agreements, “Don’t take anything personally.” Although it can feel like a personal attack, especially when you’re writing aspects of yourself into your work, Ruiz reminds us:

   “Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.”

   So, if you can, try to not take it personally. It’s not about you, it’s about themselves, and it’s about the play.

   Unless someone is very obviously being mad disrespectful. Don’t let that ish slide.

4. Journal about your initial intentions behind writing the play. Remember what I said about the multiverse. There are a million ways to tell your story. So, to combat getting sucked in and losing clarity of your play, spend time asking yourself: Why’d you want to write this so badly? What’s important to you about this story? What do you desperately want to express with it? Who’s the story centering? What do you want people to walk away with? Asking these questions will help you build an impenetrable filter, making it easy to decipher where feedback fits in the multiverse of your play.

5. Take big swings. If someone does present something that’s interesting, and you’re excited about it, you can absolutely run with it. It’s okay to take a note. Everyone is trying to make your play the best that it can be. Everyone in and out of the room wants your play to succeed (except for haters). Don’t let ego or fear get in the way. If it feels aligned and right, take the note and fly. You’ve got your older draft saved—take a big swing, you can always hit “delete.”

6. Reach out to your network. Call other playwright friends or mentors. Your dramaturg friends. Anybody who can give you support and objective thoughts. Life’s already hard enough. Don’t make it harder by trying to carry everything and sort through it all alone. Let people support you. Let them love you. Let them talk sense to you. Let them be real with you. And let them go to bat for you. Strategize with them.

7. It’s okay to disengage. When it’s clear that someone is only looking for problems with your play, and it feels like they don’t trust you as a writer, it’s okay to tap out. You want collaborators to be curious about your play and not afraid to ask questions, but you want to them to be doing it in service of clarity and the play that you’ve actually written, not the play they’ve secretly wished you’d written.

All this is not to say that your collaborators or audiences or whomever are not smart people. I don’t mean to sound like nothing anyone says about our play has any merit and you should stomp them out. Theatre is collaborative. We need others, and when you find your people, it’s particularly magical. I personally love surrounding myself with smart, passionate, deep-thinking artists who can crack open the play in wonderful new ways that I would have never done on my own. I’m only framing (hopefully helpfully) some guardrails and tools you can use for receiving and engaging with feedback and critique.

Go forth, dear writer, and get you some f****n’ feedback!

A couple well-known programs like Playwrights Realm’s Scratchpad Series haven’t opened their submission windows yet, so definitely check back in next month, and I’ll drop a message in the chat or send an email when updates come in.

As always, make sure to hit the download button underneath the image to get access to a PDF with clickable links.

UPDATED 1/27

Submission Opportunities Jan - Feb 2026

178KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Happy Submitting!

NOW hol’ up…

You’ve got your submission lists, but how’s that resume looking? For a refresh or tips on creating one for the first time, peep the guide below.

Also, if there are dope submission opportunities that you’d like to be included in future lists, please share below (I will vet all submissions):

Share an Opportunity with the Community

Note: I’m not interested in gatekeeping resources, so these and future submission opps will be free posts—all you have to do is be a subscriber at any level! And if you value my work and want to help me continue to make submission lists (bigger and better), and other resources available, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. 🙏🏾

The frustrating loss / delay of SNAP benefits has deeply upset me.

I think, in part, because no bit of this is theoretical to me. I am someone who has relied on SNAP to buoy me through very challenging, bleak, and stressful economic times in my life. I know what it means to have the blessing of benefits, and I know the devastation of even a slight delay in availability of funds.

In these times of inflation and food insecurity for so many, a presidential administration that proves daily (almost gleefully so) that it doesn’t give a damn about the well-being of every day Americans, and now amidst a government shutdown, it’s really got me thinking about how communities through mutual aid. And as a theatre practitioner, I really start to wonder, what is the theatre industry’s role here? What does it mean to be a cultural, civic institution in a city. What does it really mean to be a nonprofit regional theatre serving a community?

Unlike (most) Broadway and commercial theatre, regional nonprofit theatres receive public funding, grants, and charitable donations. Combine that public funding with a mission-specific philosophy, and a social contract of sorts is forged. They are supported by the public, which in turn, makes them accountable to that public which sustains them. In other words, they have a responsibility to the communities they serve.

Historically, the theatre has long been a gathering place to connect, share stories, exchange ideas, grieve and heal, and imagine new futures together. It has long been a place for political discourse. The great Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge would take to the stage following a performance and speak directly to the audience himself, denouncing racism and slavery.

From post-play discussions to pay-what-you-can nights to student matinees and educational programming, the theatre is one of the best places to engage with people because it is a natural community hub. We know it can provide art, entertainment, political discourse—it’s got all that on lock. And when the needs of the community grow beyond those offerings, when the government systems fail to protect and support us, the question becomes “how can theatre organizations step up, shift, and adapt to support their local communities?” How can they honor the social contract to not only reflect the community, but serve and uplift it? For theatre is more than storytelling, it’s survival.

As an example, during the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdown, when regular season programming came to a halt, many theatres recognized their responsibility to their communities and found ways to engage in mutual aid and community service:

JACK partnered with BIPOC-led mutual aid group We Keep Us Safe Abolitionist Network to turn their space into a food and supplies distribution center, serving hundreds of local families.

Soho Rep launched Project Number One, a jobs creation program, which sought to employed artists, paying them a living wage and providing health insurance.

Arena Stage turned its space into a vaccination site.

Seattle Rep partnered with WashMasks Mutual Aid for a food and mask drive, while also using its costume shop along with many other theatres including Milwaukee Repertory Theater and Alliance Theatre to participate in mask making and distribution efforts.

These are but a few examples of the power that theatre organizations have to respond to the needs of the public.

Which returns us to the current moment. In my home city of Seattle, we are seeing responses to the SNAP crisis. For example, Couth Buzzard Books is reducing the cost of all of their food and baked goods to “pay-what-you-can” until SNAP is fully reinstated. But even outside of significant times of crisis—pandemics or natural disasters—how can theatres incorporate more aspects of mutual aid and community service into their core missions?

As a playwright, I’m asking similar questions and trying to incorporate this work into my writing. In my play Golden, during preshow, a young unhoused girl walks the aisles and wanders the theatre space soliciting “spare change.” The stage directions explicitly state that any money collected is to be given to an organization of the actor’s choice. This works on a couple of levels. One, it forces theatre patrons, particularly the wealthier Seattleites to confront their assumptions about who should and shouldn’t be in a theatre, people experiencing houselessness, and the realities of the housing crisis within their community. Two, it is actively raising money for community and cultural organizations, which feeds directly back into the community.

Here are more current / recent examples I see in Seattle:

Theatre Organizations

Latitude Theatre’s Pay-WITH-Your-CAN Night

This program allows audience members to get either a free or discounted ticket to their show by bringing canned goods to donate. One canned good = $10 off. Three canned goods = one free ticket. All non-perishable food items are donated to the University District Food Bank.

Their next Pay-WITH-Your-CAN Night is scheduled for their production of A Klingon Christmas Carol on 12/10.

Intiman partnership with Food Lifeline

Intiman’s annual production of Black Nativity returned in 2023, with an amazing partnership. During a specific moment of the show called “pass the basket,” audiences are encouraged to donate via cash or QR code. 50% of the donations raised go to the production’s artists and 50% goes to Food Lifeline, an organization dedicated to ending hunger and food insecurity. In 2023, the Intiman’s production of Black Nativity raised $15,000 for the organization, and their partnership continues.

Non-theatre Organizations

Wa Na Wari operates Love Offering, a community meal program which provides free-of-cost nutritious, healthy African diasporic and Native American-inspired food, prepared by Black/Indigenous chefs, two days a week.

WashMasks Mutual Aid, a collective that supports migrant and Indigenous farmworkers in Washington state, is running its sixth annual Heart of Washington Campaign, partnering with several organizations to run food and clothing drives. Partner orgs include: Sound Theatre Company, Seattle Public Theater, Village Theatre, and C&P Coffee Company.

The Call

I love what these organizations are doing. I know there are many more out there doing incredible work, and we should be empowering and advocating for even more theatre organizations to be asking the question “with the resources we have, what can we do?” Let this post serve as inspiration, arts leader, playwright, theatre maker. Let this post be a call, an invitation for us as a theatre community to continue to innovate the ways in which we can activate our organizations as well as our brick-and-mortar spaces to provide mutual aid to our communities.

A few big residencies and fellowships haven’t opened their submissions yet (Jerome and Many Voices, to name a couple), so you’ll absolutely want to check back in later this month, get your artist statements and resumes in order, and I’ll drop a message in the chat or send an email when updates come in.

As always, make sure to hit the download button underneath the image to get access to a PDF with clickable links.

UPDATED 12/6

Submission Opportunities Oct - Dec 2025

142KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Happy Submitting!

NOW hol’ up…

You’ve got your submission lists, but how’s that resume looking? For a refresh or tips on creating one for the first time, peep the guide below.

Also, if there are dope submission opportunities that you’d like to be included in future lists, please share below (I will vet all submissions):

Share an Opportunity with the Community

Note: I’m not interested in gatekeeping resources, so these and future submission opps will be free posts—all you have to do is be a subscriber at any level! And if you value my work and want to help me continue to make submission lists (bigger and better), and other resources available, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. 🙏🏾

Nothing empties my brain and fills me with dread faster than somebody hitting me with that diabolical “So tell me about yourself.”

I think that’s why I love having a piece of paper or PDF that has all my facts and history already written down on it. I can easily hand that over like… “any further questions?” It saves one from having to hear about my childhood love for Goosebumps when they really just wanted to know how I got into professional theatre.

With artist statements, that’s a whole different struggle, but one thing at a time. Today, I am grateful for ✨the resume✨. And seeing how we’re in the middle of a big submission season, I’d love to offer some resume crafting basics with a few personal opinions mixed in. As always, take what’s useful, leave what’s not. We’re just adding to the toolkit.

The Basics

First of all, a playwriting resume isn’t your traditional job resume. No food service, no Microsoft Excel proficiency (although, that’s useful tool for a playwright). No, your playwriting resume is closer to a creative portfolio in list form, specifically tailored to highlight your written work and experiences as a writer. It gives a clear, easily digestible snapshot of your career thus far, while showcasing your achievements as a playwright.

It’s purpose here is less “give me an interview and hire me, please” and more “this is who I am, here’s what I’ve accomplished, here’s how to find out more, and here’s how to get in touch.”

A resume doesn’t get you a production or guarantee you a new client, but it introduces you and your work to someone new, and opens the door to start building a relationship. Which, in this business…is King.

Let’s break down the resume into its various parts:

Start with a HEADER.

Set it somewhere near the top of the page. I like mine centered, but that’s not a rule. Include your name and contact info, at least email and phone number.

Incoming Opinion: I don’t list my physical address. I’m not doxing myself to just anybody. And it’s usually on the title page of my script (unless you download from NPX). If someone really needs it, they can reach out.

Website/Profiles/Social Media

Be sure to include your website, New Play Exchange profile, and possibly a social media account if it feels right. I list my TikTok because I make theatre and playwriting content. As long as it’s relevant and connected to your work, you could list it.

Pro Tip: Hyperlink as much as possible to save space and present a cleaner, less cluttered look.

Common Nouns

Another Opinion: Include common nouns. I’m a playwright, but I also have screenwriting credits and want to position myself as a screenwriter, so I’m going to include that here in my header. This is partly a branding thing, but it also sends a clear message to folks engaging with your resume: this is who I am and this is what I do.

Here’s what the header of my resume looks like (minus my phone #):

Once you’ve got that, you’re ready to move on to the BODY.

There’s lots of ways to do a layout for the body. But typically you’ll use Bolded section headings in some sort of row or column format for your listings. Check out the templates at the end of this post to see examples.

But as far as content, sections you’ll want to include are:

Plays

You spent all this time writing, you better list them plays! List productions, workshops, and readings. List the producing or developing theatre company and the year.

Opinion: I like to list directors. The theatre world is small. Someone seeing a familiar name may give me another point of connection. But this does take up space on the page. Pros and cons.

If you’ve got both full-length and short plays, break them into different categories. Create a third category for your screenwriting, if you have credits (include web series & short film). Include screenplay title, episode title (if series), format (web series, feature film, etc.), production company (write “Unproduced” if that’s the case), and year.

Pro Tip: Early career playwrights: List all your plays. Even if they haven’t had any productions, workshops, or readings.

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Accolades

We gotta get our pats on the back anyway we can. List your honors, awards, and fellowships (winner, finalist, semifinalist statuses welcome). If you have nabbed any grants, commissions, or residencies you can create categories for those. Include the name of the award, the organization, and the year it was awarded.

As a general rule, when listing a credit, include the year.

Affiliations/Writers Groups

Are you a member of an organization like the Dramatists Guild of America or writers group? List it.

Teaching

List all your teaching experience. Have you done any speaking at colleges or events, list those invited presentations.

Publications

This is for fully published plays, excerpts or monologues, essays. If it’s published in print or online, list it. Include the title, the format (essay, short play, etc.), the publication or platform, and, of course, the year.

Education

Got debt—I mean a theatre degree? Taken a workshop? List it here. Include institution/organization name, degree/course, and one or two instructor names.

Opinion: This is the one place you don’t want to put a date. The year you graduated is between you and Jesus.

And that’s it! You’ve got a resume!

More Thoughts

Fonts

Choose a font that is easy to read.

Length

For more established writers, I say two pages is fine. If it starts grow beyond that, you may be looking at a CV and might consider culling it a bit.

Condensing Tips

Consider keeping what is most recent or more high profile, and trimming the older, less impressive credits. For instance, you might delete the 10-minute play you produced in college, trading an academic credit for a professional one. Another thing you might do is create two different resumes. A 1-2 page curated resume with most of your professional and highest profile credits, and a full resume with your entire professional catalog and accomplishments. You can have either at the ready should you need them.

What to Do If You Don’t Have Many Credits

If you have the opposite problem and have fewer credits, then first, as I said in the Plays section, list em all, whether they’ve been produced or not. List them, name that they’re unproduced, and include the year they were written. Second, think creatively about what you do have. List volunteer experience, apprenticeships, dramaturg work. If it’s reasonably in the land of writing or new play development, list it. This is a hard business. People will understand and won’t penalize you for having few credits.

Chill

Remember, the resume is just introducing folks to you and your work. You don’t have to list everything that has ever happened in your career. You can create a CV for that. And the gift of having a website is you can always list your work and achievements there in greater detail than could ever fit in a couple of pages.

Resources

Editable Template

Here’s an editable template I’ve created in Microsoft Word (.docx format). Please feel free to download and use how you see it.

Download Editable Template

Dramatists Guild Template

Take a look at this resume template created by the Dramatists Guild of America. It’s a little out of date, but still has some good information, and can give you another idea for a possible layout design.

Dramatists Guild Resume Template

42KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Lastly…

Why, yes, you’re right it is submission season!

And now that you’ve got a resume, you need some places to submit it to. Check out the submission listings below (regularly updated).

Happy resume crafting, dear writer!

I came to theatre first as an actor. I did two years of acting training in my BFA program before switching to a focus on playwriting and directing. So, I came to playwriting with acting skills and an intellectual understanding of text analysis, vocabulary, and story structure.

In my transition into writing, I’ve had to find the transferrable skills from my acting training and learn how to put them together with practical playwriting craft and my natural instinct for storytelling. Throughout my career, I’ve met many challenges when it comes to figuring out “how to write a play.” And nothing has helped me in my journey as much as José Rivera’s 36 Assumptions About Playwriting, a collection of thoughts—a manifesto of sorts—about the craft of playwriting penned by the renowned magical realist playwright and screenwriter.

From the first read, playwriting clicked for me in a more visceral, gut-level way, not just an intellectual one. And as I got more comfortable putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys), writing became easier (truly, the best way to get better at writing plays is to write plays). The more I wrote and the more situations I encountered (looking at you, writer’s block), the more sense these assumptions made, and the more I pledged my allegiance to José Rivera and his brilliance.

I personally love this collection of thoughts. It gave language for much of what I felt but couldn’t articulate. It illuminated new ideas. It affirmed my instincts. It issued me new challenges to overcome, and encouraged me to go further, deeper, more personal. It asked me to risk and be vulnerable. It granted me a sort of freedom and ownership that inspired me to find my own voice, and made me excited to write.

I return to this document each time I start a new play. It has remained a guiding light ever since encountering it 13 years ago.

I share it with you now in hopes that it guides your playwriting journey as it has guided mine.

José says:

Over the years, I've had the good fortune to teach writing in a number of schools from second-grade to graduate school. I usually just wing it. But lately, I've decided to think about the assumptions I've been working under and to write them down. The following is an unscientific, gut-level survey of the assumptions I have about writing plays, in no particular order of importance.

1. Good playwriting is a collaboration between your many selves. The more multiple your personalities, the further, wider, deeper you will be able to go.

2. Theatre is closer to poetry and music than it is to the novel.

3. There's no time limit to writing plays. Think of playwriting as a life-long apprenticeship. Imagine you may have your best ideas on your deathbed.

4. Write plays in order to organize despair and chaos. To live vicariously. To play God. To project an idealized version of the world. To destroy things you hate in the world and in yourself. To remember and to forget. To lie to yourself. To play. To dance with language. To beautify the landscape. To fight loneliness. To inspire others. To imitate your heroes. To bring back the past and raise the dead. To achieve transcendence of yourself. To fight the powers that be. To sound alarms. To provoke conversation. To engage in the conversation started by great writers in the past. To further evolve the artform. To lose yourself in your fictive world. To make money.

5. Write because you want to show something. To show that the world is shit. To show how fleeting love and happiness are. To show the inner workings of your ego. To show that democracy is in danger. To show how interconnected we are. (Each "to show" is active and must be personal, deeply held, true to you.)

6. Each line of dialogue is like a piece of DNA; potentially containing the entire play and its thesis; potentially telling us the beginning, middle, and end of the play.

7. Be prepared to risk your entire reputation every time you write, otherwise it's not worth your audience's time.

8. Embrace your writer's block. It's nature's way of saving trees and your reputation. Listen to it and try to understand its source. Often, writer's block happens to you because somewhere in your work you've lied to yourself and your subconscious won't let you go any further until you've gone back, erased the lie, stated the truth and started over.

9. Language is a form of entertainment. Beautiful language can be like beautiful music: it can amuse, inspire, mystify, enlighten.

10. Rhythm is key. Use as many sounds and cadences as possible. Think of dialogue as a form of percussive music. You can vary the speed of the language, the number of beats per line, volume, density. You can use silences, fragments, elongated sentences, interruptions, overlapping conversation, physical activity, monologues, nonsense, non sequiturs, foreign languages.

11. Vary your tone as much as possible. Juxtapose high seriousness with raunchy language with lyrical beauty with violence with dark comedy with awe with eroticism.

12. Action doesn't have to be overt. It can be the steady deepening of the dramatic situation or your character's steady emotional movements from one emotional/psychological condition to another: ignorance to enlightenment, weakness to strength, illness to wholeness.

13. Invest something truly personal in each of your characters, even if it's something of your worst self.

14. If realism is as artificial as any genre, strive to create your own realism. If theatre is a handicraft in which you make one of a kind pieces, then you're in complete control of your fictive universe. What are its physical laws? What's gravity like? What does time do? What are the rules of cause and effect? How do your characters behave in this altered universe?

15. Write from your organs. Write from your eyes, your heart, your liver, your ass -- write from your brain last of all.

16. Write from all of your senses. Be prepared to design on the page: tell yourself exactly what you see, feel, hear, touch and taste in this world. Never leave design to chance, that includes the design of the cast.

17. Find your tribe. Educate your collaborators. Stick to your people and be faithful to them. Seek aesthetic and emotional compatibility with those your work with. Understand your director's world view because it will color his/her approach to your work.

18. Strive to be your own genre. Great plays represent the genres created around the author's voice. A Chekhov genre. A Caryl Churchill genre.

19. Strive to create roles that actors you respect will kill to perform.

20. Form follows function. Strive to reflect the content of the play in the form of the play.

21. Use the literalization of metaphor to discuss the inner emotional state of your characters.

22. Don't be afraid to attempt great themes: death, war, sexuality, identity, fate, God, existence, politics, love.

23. Theatre is the explanation of life to the living. Try to tease apart the conflicting noises of living, and make some kind of pattern and order. It's not so much and explanation of life as much as it is a recipe for understanding, a blueprint for navigation, a confidante with some answers, enough to guide you and encourage you, but not to dictate to you.

24. Push emotional extremes. Don't be a puritan. Be sexy. Be violent. Be irrational. Be sloppy. Be frightening. Be loud. Be stupid. Be colorful.

25. Ideas may be deeply embedded in the interactions and reactions of your character; they may be in the music and poetry of your form. You have thoughts and you generate ideas constantly. A play ought to embody those thoughts and those thoughts can serve as a unifying energy in your play.

26. A play must be organized. This is another word for structure. You organize a meal, your closet, your time -- why not your play?

27. Strive to be mysterious, not confusing.

28. Think of information in a play like an IV drip -- dispense just enough to keep the body alive, but not too much too soon.

29. Think of writing as a constant battle against the natural inertia of language.

30. Write in layers. Have as many things happening in a play in any one moment as possible.

31. Faulkner said the greatest drama is the heart in conflict with itself.

32. Keep your chops up with constant questioning of your own work. React against your work. Be hypercritical. Do in the next work what you aimed for but failed to do in the last one.

33. Listen only to those people who have a vested interest in your future.

34. Character is the embodiment of obsession. A character must be stupendously hungry. There is no rest for those characters until they've satisfied their needs.

35. In all your plays be sure to write at least one impossible thing. And don't let your director talk you out of it.

36. A writer cannot live without an authentic voice -- the place where you are the most honest, most lyrical, most complete, most creative and new. That's what you're striving to find. But the authentic voice doesn't know how to write, any more than gasoline knows how to drive. But driving is impossible without fuel and writing is impossible without the heat and strength of your authentic voice. Learning to write well is the stuff of workshops. Learning good habits and practicing hard. But finding your authentic voice as a writer is your business, your journey -- a private, lonely, inexact, painful, slow and frustrating voyage. Teachers and mentors can only bring you closer to that voice. With luck and time, you'll get there on your own.

Hi! Andrew jumping back in here. Which assumption(s) is/are sticking with you? Let me know in the comments!

“I have a play in me. I just need to sit down and write it. But it’s impossible for me to just disappear for lengths of time because of [insert life challenge] (my job, my kids, my attention span, my living situation, etc.).”

Life’s ****ing busy. Trying to be a good partner, a good son, a good friend, a responsible human who cares about the world, pay my bills, stay healthy, and find a little joy for myself can drain every ounce of battery I have. When you’re expending so much lifeforce just trying to exist in the world, how does one find the energy or time to be creative?

When you’re a playwright, I’ve found, you can’t sit around hoping for inspiration to strike or waiting for a chunk of time to be gifted to you. You have to find time to write, and you have to create a consistent writing practice. You have to learn to live both your creative life and your daily life simultaneously. The question is how.

First off, I don’t ever want you to feel like you can’t be a writer. You can. Even if you don’t have a rich partner. Even if you have to work. Even if you’re always on the go. Even if you’re a parent. Whatever the case may be, I promise you, there is a way.

Here are some practical strategies and low-cost (mostly) ways that have helped me write my play even when life feels too full.

Go on Mini to Medium-length Retreats

Sometimes a new environment is necessary. It can be challenging to be creative in the same place you sleep, cook, bathe, and relax in everyday without becoming distracted or overwhelmed with chores, tasks, and anxiety—just ask that pile of laundry in the corner of my apartment. Don’t be afraid to switch it up. A change in your environment can be life-changing, and can give you the space to literally shift your mindset and free you up to be creative and focused.

Ways to get out of your everyday environment:

House or Pet sit.

Somebody somewhere needs some house or pet sitting. Tap into your network. Tell your family, friends, colleagues, and coworkers you’d be down to help them out. When the opportunity arises, you’ve suddenly got a couple of days in a new environment, cost-free, and you’re helping someone else out. Double win.

Go to a coffee shop or library.

Some library systems even have special programs for writers—like the Writers Room at the Seattle Public Library, for example.

Get an Airbnb for a few days.

I know they can be super expensive these days, but you can still find some deals. Find a lil cabin or a nice comfy place with a good view and write.

Pro tip #1: Start asking for Airbnb gift cards for birthdays and holidays.

Pro tip #2: If you have earned paid time off (PTO) from your job, you may be able to use it in conjunction with your Airbnb stay so that you aren’t just eating the cost, but getting paid to do so. You could also use your PTO around a holiday or a 3-day weekend and stretch it into a 4-day weekend, giving you a little extra time to write.

Retreat in place.

If writing at home really is the best environment for you, then declare a day or weekend for writing. Let your loved ones know so that they can enthusiastically and lovingly give you the space and support you require. Maybe even designate one friend as an accountabilabuddy. Someone who can check in on you and keep you on track. Sometimes—just like with a good deadline—knowing someone else is counting on me is a great motivator. Maybe consider meeting up with another writer for some dedicated writing time. If you have young children, perhaps your partner or a parent or friend could provide some childcare.

Join a writers group or organization with host events.

Gather a group of writers together and set a day once a month where y’all meet up and write.

There are organizations out there that are devoted to supporting writers. And some of them, like Rain City Projects, actually host one-off “retreats”—writing days that are completely free to attend. Some may be in-person, some may be virtual remote offerings.

Find the In-between Moments

If you have a particularly busy schedule and you find yourself moving from one obligation or activity to the next with little time between, look for ways to take advantage of the moments you have and make creative use of them.

Bookend your day with writing.

Find a period in the beginning, middle, or end of your day that will give you a window of writing time. Maybe you wake up an hour earlier than normal and write until sunrise. As for me, I’m currently writing this at the end of my evening. The night time quiets my brain, and I love writing after I’ve had the entire day to inspire me. Try adjusting your schedule a bit and see if you can’t find an hour or two.

Write on the go.

The thing about being a writer is you’re always writing…even when you’re not writing. Get out of your environment and go for a walk around the block. Before you set out, choose an aspect of your play or a character to think about. And as you walk, let your mind wander. Let it take in what’s around you. Let it take in inspiration. Let it reset. Let it refocus. In moments like this, you actually give your brain and chance to start putting equations together and problem solving. You might come back from your walk having thought of the perfect ending to act one.

Take public transportation. If you’re on your way to an event or work, and your schedule allows, consider hopping the bus or train. In these moments when you don’t have to focus on driving, use your notes app, your voice record app, or a small notebook to jot down or flesh out ideas. That could be an extra 30-45 minutes of writing time you find yourself with.

Pro tip: You may be eligible to get a reduced fare for your public transit system, based on your income. King County’s ORCA LIFT program reduces all fares to $1. Check with your local public transit system.

Find a flexible work schedule.

In an ideal world, you could just pick up a notebook or laptop and start writing at any time of the day. But that’s not a reality for most writers. We have to work. A more achievable goal could look like shifting other parts of your life to fit better within your writing life. Let’s say you’re a writer who feels more alert and ready to write during the day. You may look to pursue survival jobs that allow you to work evenings or even remotely. Finding jobs with flexibility in their scheduling will allow you to mold your work life around your creative life so that you don’t have to choose between them.

There are many different ways you can carve out a few extra minutes here and there for your creative life. Think outside the box! Finding little moments to write between tasks, obligations, and life events allows you to still feel the momentum. Even though you may not be able to set aside hours of dedicated writing time in the moment, you are still writing, you’re still working, progress is still being made. And knowing that goes a long way.

Apply for Artist Residencies

Artist residencies are a great way to get a longer period of dedicated creative time away from your home. There are so many organizations out there that want writers to come hang out for a week up to a few months and just focus on writing. Often, these residencies are located out in rural areas. Surrounded by acres of nature and being in community with other artists are common features of a residency. Some have fees associated with them, but many will be entirely subsidized with food and lodging included. Most residencies are highly sought after and competitive opportunities, but are absolutely worth throwing your hat in the ring for. If you can get one, a residency will be a one-of-a-kind experience that gives you the opportunity to travel, to build community with and be inspired by other artists, and a great resume line. To find residencies to apply to, check out my bimonthly playwright submission opportunity posts—there are dozens listed throughout the year.

Dear playwright, don’t fall for the lie that you can’t have a fruitful creative life. You can, you just gotta get creative. The play is in you. Now make the time, and go write it.

Definitely check back because there will be some big opportunities (like the O’Neill) who haven’t dropped their submission windows yet, but will soon. I will update as those dates and details come my way! But this list should whet your appetite!

Make sure to hit the download button underneath the image to get access to a PDF with clickable links.

LIST UPDATED 8/23

Also, if there are dope submission opportunities that you’d like to be included in future lists, please share below (I will vet all submissions):

Share an Opportunity with the Community

Happy Submitting!

Submission Opportunities Aug - Sep 2025_UPDATED 8/23

162KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Note: I’m not interested in gatekeeping resources, so these and future submission opps will be free posts—all you have to do is be a subscriber at any level! And if you value my work and want to help me continue to make submission lists (bigger and better), and other resources available, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. 🙏🏾

Writing emails drains me.

As a playwright, I’m in a constant battle royale between time and energy, creativity and connection. And as much as I cherish and value connecting with people, sometimes it’d be nice to be able to cut down on repetitive tasks and to preserve a little more of my energy for writing plays and living life. And as a small business owner, I can’t ignore the administrative and marketing sides of playwriting. It’s not enough to write a play, you have to submit it, you have to write about it, you have to self-produce it, you have to invite people to it, you have to network and build authentic relationships. All of these things require LOTS of emails. Somedays I just don’t have the energy to do it, somedays, it stresses me out and I avoid it, and somedays, I just forget—thanks ADHD.

All that to say, writing emails can become a daunting, time-consuming, and anxiety-inducing task—particularly when you need to do a large amount of them or when you need to write the same kind of email frequently. So, what to do?

The best way I’ve found to make my emailing life a little easier is by creating an email template.

There are many ways to do this. You can write a sample email in Google Docs or Microsoft Word, for instance, and just copy and paste into a new email body whenever you need. But the easiest way I’ve found is by creating a template within Gmail itself. I learned this hack when I was working in a theatre box office. We would use templates to communicate information to our subscribers. Now that I know how to use this function (shared below), there’s no going back.

What do you use templates for?

I personally love to use a template for sending invitations when I’ve got a production or public reading going up. Or when I’m in the early process of self-producing, I love to use a template for generating offer emails.

Using a well-crafted template allows me to provide all the essential details while maintaining a personal touch. People appreciate an email actually addressed to them, and a note connected to your personal relationship with them. We like to feel like we’re not talking to a robot. A template provides an excellent starting point, and when replies start coming in, you can be sure to respond with your full-hearted authentic self.

That’s literally just a couple of ways to use templates, but there are many ways to make use of this handy tool. The larger conversation is really centered around: how do I make my administrative, non-creative, business-essential part of my practice more efficient and less stressful?

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of uses for templates

• Event Invitations

• Self-producing offer letters

• Submission cover letters

• Production inquiry letters

Anyway, enough yapping. Watch the video below to find out how to create an email template on Gmail for yourself. Happy writing, friends!

Make sure to hit the download button underneath the image to get access to a PDF with clickable links.

Also, if there are dope submission opportunities that you’d like to be included in future lists, please share below (I will vet to make sure it’s legit):

Share an Opportunity with the Community

Happy Submitting!

Submission Opportunities Jun - Jul 2025

92.9KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Note: I’m not interested in gatekeeping resources, so these and future submission opps will be free posts—all you have to do is be a subscriber at any level! And if you value my work and want to help me continue to make submission lists (bigger and better), and other resources available, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. 🙏🏾

Make sure to hit the download button underneath the image to get access to a PDF with clickable links.

Also, if there are dope submission opportunities that you’d like to be included in future lists, please share below (I will vet to make sure it’s legit):

Share an Opportunity with the Community

Happy Submitting!

Submission Opportunities Apr - May 2025

92.3KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Note: I’m not interested in gatekeeping resources, so these and future submission opps will be free posts—all you have to do is be a subscriber at any level! And if you value my work and want to help me continue to make submission lists (bigger and better), and other resources available, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. 🙏🏾

Make sure to hit the download button underneath the image to get access to a PDF with clickable links.

Also, if there are dope submission opportunities that you’d like to be included in future lists, please share below (I will vet to make sure it’s legit):

Share an Opportunity with the Community

Happy Submitting!

Submission Opportunities Feb Mar 2025

92.5KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Note: I’m not interested in gatekeeping resources, so these and future submission opps will be free posts—all you have to do is be a subscriber at any level! And if you value my work and want to help me continue to make submission lists (bigger and better), and other resources available, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. 🙏🏾

She’s right. It’s easy to dream. It’s easy to come up with big ideas, goals, and visions for your future self. It’s fun to imagine your perfect, successful life. It’s more challenging, and even scary to reckon with the work it takes to actually make your dreams a reality. The what is easy, but how are you going to get there? What actionable steps are you taking? And are you showing up consistently and putting in the work? Are you actually doing or are you just dreaming?

As a self-described, lifelong dreamer, I constantly step into the beartrap of dreaming. But this year, I’m moving with more intention—I hearby name 2025 the Year of Doing. So, with that in mind, I created this bingo card with actionable steps to help me get to where I want to be. Check out the video below where I go through the entire bingo card.

And if you feel so inspired, and wish to join me in this year of doing, I’ve included downloadable bingo cards for you below. You can use my completed card to get you started, or if you feel so inclined, grab the blank card and fill in your own goals and actionable steps.

Happy New Year, Happy Doing, and Happy Writing!

Andrew

So here’s me being. And here’s this space becoming.

I’m not quite sure what this space will be yet. I know that I want a monthly newsletter. I know I want a way to connect with people. I know I want to give game and insight. I know I’m still on my own journey, and I want to pay forward what I have learned thus far. I know I want to continue to create educational writing/storytelling craft content not just for those who are interested, but for folks like myself who did not get an MFA in playwriting, and who have mainly learned by doing. I know I want to arm playwrights with knowledge of their rights and responsibilities, and empower them as we all navigate the business side of theatre. I know I want a space to voice my thoughts on theatre as a whole, and fight for a more equitable industry. I know I want to provide an ongoing list of play submission opportunities. I know I want to build a space where we can uplift and encourage each other to keep going.

If any of that sounds good to you, please join me, and let’s build together.

With gratitude,

Andrew

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