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About the Canadian Jewish Playwriting Competition

Originally a program run by an independent group of dedicated volunteers, The Toronto Jewish Theatre Committee, the Canadian Jewish Playwriting Competition was founded in 1989 and operated out of the Bathurst JCC – in North Toronto.

In 1999, the MNjcc adopted this program and ran it with a group of jurors from the professional theatre community. Before 2006 there was an average of six plays submitted each year. With more publicity and exposure, up to 20 plays are submitted from six Canadian provinces, the United States and Israel each year. Program and presenting partners of the Canadian Jewish Playwriting Competition 2019 are The Harold Green Jewish Theatre (Ontario), The Segal Centre for the Performing Arts (Quebec), The Winnipeg Jewish Theatre (Manitoba), The Calgary JCC (Albert) and The Vancouver JCC (British Columbia).

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

• Plays are to be sent via email as PDF attachments to deannad@mnjcc.org.  Playwrights must use a pseudonym on the front page of their play so that the jury does not recognize their name.
• Please include a letter in the body of the email (that has the play attached) that outlines the history of the creation of this play. This letter should detail all related workshops/readings and dramaturgy. Playwrights must also include their real name and full contact information in this letter. For musical submissions, if there is a musical demo to be submitted, please do so via cloud-based link.
• Plays need to have numbered pages
• Please note, jurors do not provide feedback on submitted plays.

SUBMISSION FEE:

$36 in Canadian funds per play is to be paid with each submission on or before JULY 3, 2019

Pay with cash or debit in person at our lobby information desk OR

Pay by phone: (416) 924-6211 x 0 with a Visa or Mastercard OR

Pay by certified cheque/money order payable to the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre and mail to: The Miles Nadal JCC, ATTN: Deanna Di Lello, 750 Spadina Ave, Toronto ON, M5S 2J2

ELIGIBILITY:

• Playwrights do not need to be Jewish but must be Canadian.
• Play content should have a Jewish focus, depicting a strong theme or aspect of Jewish life.
• Plays must be no less than one hour and no more than two hours in length.
• Plays must be in English.

INELIGIBILITY:

• Plays that have been previously produced as a Canadian Actors’ Equity Association (CAEA) co-op agreement/production agreement
• Plays that have been previously produced outside of the CAEA agreements and staged for more than one week, except for Fringe Festival productions
• Plays that have been submitted to this competition during the last ten years.
• Plays which are not in English.

PRIZE:

• The winning playwright will receive $1,000 (CDN) and an 8-hour workshop with an Equity director and up to six Equity actors. This workshop concludes with a public reading. The winning playwright will be announced in January 2020.
• This program is generously funded by The Asper Foundation.

JURY:

The jury members are representatives of Toronto (Harold Green Jewish Theatre), Montreal (Segal Centre for the Performing Arts), Winnipeg (Winnipeg Jewish Theatre), Calgary (Calgary JCC) and Vancouver (JCC of Greater Vancouver) arts communities.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: JULY 3, 2019

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