***PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PROGRAM IS CURRENTLY SUSPENDED (UPDATED 1/5/2024)***
A new canon inspired by Shakespeare’s Plays
Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries is a groundbreaking, industry-changing undertaking that is discovering, developing, and producing a new canon of 38 plays that are inspired by and in conversation with Shakespeare’s work. It’s an opportunity for playwrights of every background, perspective, and style to engage with Shakespeare and his stage practices. It’s our chance to bring living writers into the world’s only re-creation of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre: the Blackfriars Playhouse.
Playwrights get: a world premiere production of their play; $25,000 prize; travel and housing for the rehearsal and development process.
We’re looking for: unproduced plays that engage with Shakespeare’s work and embrace Shakespeare’s staging conditions.
2022 Updates
2022 will see the production of L M Feldman’s Thrive, or What You Will, winner of the 2020 SNC award, directed by Larissa Lury. We are thrilled to finally get to produce this stunning tale of the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, performed in rep with the title it is in conversation with – Twelfth Night. New cycles of the SNC Initiative are currently on hold as we work through titles paused by the COVID19 pandemic. We are using this time to evaluate the program to ensure its vitality and sustainability going forward. Sign up below for the SNC mailing list to be the first to hear future plans.
