Women & Theatre Program, ATHE

Women and Theatre Program

JANE CHAMBERS PLAYWRITING CONTEST 2008

JANE CHAMBERS PLAYWRITING CONTEST 2009
For Women Playwrights

The JANE CHAMBERS AWARD recognizes feminist plays & performance texts created by women writers that present significant opportunities for female performers. Given in memory of lesbian playwright Jane Chambers, who through her plays such as My Blue Heaven, Last Summer at Bluefish Cove and Kudzu became a major feminist voice in American theater, the Jane Chambers Playwriting Contest welcomes experimentations in form as well as subject matter. Feminism is understood variously, and may cross diverse class, sex, race, national, ethnic, theatrical, and/or geographic perspectives. The Jane Chambers Contest winner receives $500 & a rehearsed reading of the winning play at ATHE’s annual mid-summer conference. First given in 1984, the award is sponsored by the Women and Theater Program (WTP) with generous support from the Association for Theater in Higher Education (ATHE), private donors, and university friends.

Submissions for the 2009 Jane Chambers Contest should be sent to arrive by February 15. Please note there are two divisions, one for student applicants!
See Guidelines See Student Contest Guidelines

The 2008 Jane Chambers Winner is Mary F. Casey for UNSPEAKABLE ACTS, a lesbian history play which received its WTP reading at ATHE in Colorado in summer 2008. See details & rights info about this play & finalists who gained distinctions from among more than 100 entrants! The student contest winner is Dorothy Fortenberry (Yale) for GOOD EGG.

Winning Plays 2008 Winning Plays 2007

The Jane Chambers Award is made possible through the generosity of friends. Please make a donation to help us keep this important contest alive! For more information, click Friends!

FAQ: For Playwrights & Friends

To inquire about initiating larger levels of giving or providing in-kind support for the Jane Chambers Contest and annual reading and/or our WTP reception, please contact Maya Roth (mer46@georgetown.edu) or Sara Warner (slw42@cornell.edu).

To inquire about initiating larger levels of giving or providing in-kind support for the Jane Chambers Contest and annual readings and/or our WTP reception, please contact Maya Roth (mer46@georgetown.edu) or Priscilla Page (pmpage@theater.umass.edu), our JC Coordinators, or Ashley Lucas (lucasa@email.unc.edu), WTP President.

NEWSFLASH: Our 2007 Jane Chambers Winner, TROJAN BARBIE: A Car Crash Encounter with Euripides’ Trojan Women will be featured in ART’s 2008-09 Home Season. This epic, highly theatrical feminist play about war, gender, violence, and imagination is written by Christine Evans, with direction at ART by Carmel O’Reilly.

NEWSFLASH: We have removed Submission Fees for 2009! (As anticipated, the winner’s monetary award has been changed to $500—to help make this possible.)