Drawing on a long history of playwrights transitioning to screenwriting, this competition seeks to celebrate excellent plays that have great film or TV adaptation potential. Get visibility for your writing with theater agents and playwrights.

Past Stage Play competition winners and finalists have signed with representation from some of the biggest agencies and management companies in the industry including CAA, WME, A3 Artists, 3 Arts Entertainment and more.

All finalists will meet with a member of the jury and be invited to an exclusive finalist workshop on how you can best position yourself and your writing to the industry.

Awards & Prizes

GRAND PRIZE MENTOR

JEFFREY WHITTY
Tony Award-Winning Playwright, Academy-Award Nominated Screenwriter

The Grand Prize Winner will be mentored by Tony Award-winning, Academy Award-nominated playwright Jeffrey Whitty, receiving a virtual meeting and project development insight. Whitty is a Tony Award-winning playwright, an actor, and an Oscar-nominated screenwriter. He won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for the stage musical AVENUE Q and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?

RUNNER-UP MENTOR

The Runner-Up will have mentorship meetings with Minna Lee, a Hmong-Vietnamese American playwright and animator who brings audiences into whimsical worlds full of queer joy and strange magic.

Lee is a co-recipient of the Dramatist Guild's 2024 Lanford Wilson Award, a 2024-2025 MacDowell Fellow, a New Georges Affiliated Artist, a member of TAG at The Tank, and a 2022 Sesame Workshop Writers’ Room Fellow and the creator of an Emily Dickinson-inspired zine called Baller of Amherst.

JURY
Get in front of theater professionals and award-winning playwrights

RACHEL ELLICOTT
Agent, Paradigm

Paradigm's Theatrical Department represents the playwrights, directors, and stage titles such Dreamgirls, Sister Act, Hairspray, Rent, The Secret Garden and School of Rock.

ALLEN ECKHOUSE
Literary Manager, Logical Talent Management

Allen is the General Manager of Logical Talent Management. LTM represents topnotch screenwriters across all genres, styles, and formats. Additionally, LTM works with literary authors, podcast creators, board game designers, and other content generators to help bring their projects to life. Allen has developed pitch concepts for Dreamworks, Amblin, Blumhouse, and Illumination Entertainment.

AMY WAGNER
Agent, Stewart Talent

As a Literary Agent, Amy represents a wide variety of clients including screenwriters, television writers, playwrights, composers, lyricists, directors, choreographers and designers. Originally from St. Louis, MO but now thirty years a New Yorker.

LUCY POWIS
Theater Agent, Michael Moore Agency

Lucy has represented writers, directors, designers, composers, choreographers, and more with Michael Moore Agency and A3 Artists. Before that, she held positions in the artistic/literary departments at Roundabout Theatre Company, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Her producing and dramaturgy credits include work at The Public's Under the Radar Festival, Next Door @ NYTW, New Georges, Bushwick Starr, Ars Nova's ANT Fest, Rattlestick, The Segal Center's PRELUDE Festival, HERE, and the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center.

NOAH EZELL
Theater Agent, Independent Artist Group

Noah Ezell is a theater agent at Independent Artist Group (IAG) working with playwrights, designers, and directors with an eye towards Hollywood crossover. In addition to agenting, Noah has an artistic practice as a dramaturg and producer. Noah was a 2023 Moxie Incubator cohort producer and a 24 Hour Plays Nationals 2022 cohort producer. They have worked or interned in the literary departments at the Vineyard Theatre, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. They’ve received two national awards for dramaturgy and theatre scholarship from the Kennedy Center.

PRIZES

GRAND PRIZE

The overall grand prize winner will be welcomed to the Writer Development Program and receive personal introductions and phone calls with one or more top Hollywood literary manager(s), producers, or industry execs who are looking for talented emerging writers.

ScreenCraft's relationships include companies like Blumhouse, Netflix, HBO Max, AMC, and over 150 other Hollywood managers, agents, producers, and development executives.

ScreenCraft has a proven track record for getting writers signed with managers, agents, and staffed in writing rooms.

The Grand Prize Winner Will Also Receive:
- $1,000 Cash
- Exclusive Invitation to a Finalist+ Workshop
- Mentorship with Jeffrey Whitty

RUNNER-UP

The Runner-Up will receive:
- $500 cash award
- Acceptance into the Writer Development Program
- Exclusive Invitation to a Finalist+ Workshop
- Mentorship with Minna Lee

FINALISTS
- Guaranteed Meeting with an Industry Professional
- Exclusive Invitation to a Finalist+ Workshop

ADD-ON PRIZE OPPORTUNITY

DEVELOPMENT PRIZE
With Literary Manager Myra Model

This optional add-on prize category will identify a winner to learn, workshop, and strengthen their project with guidance from an industry mentor. This year's mentor is Literary Manager Myra Model of Myra Model Management.

After 20+ years in film and television development, including 10 years at CBS Entertainment overseeing dramatic limited series and movies, Myra Model launched Myra Model Management in January 2010. Myra launched the television careers of several playwrights and new voices including Ellen Fairey (Masters of Sex), Marisa Wegrzyn (Amazon’s Goliath); and Caitlin Parrish (CBS’ Supergirl). Myra also represents Cami Delavigne who wrote the film Blue Valentine and has written for Amazon’s Homecoming, and Showtime’s American Gigolo. Myra is currently an Executive Producer on Sunny Nights, an 8-episode comic-drama written by client Nick Keetch, starring Will Forte and D’arcy Carden.

Only projects submitted to the ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition AND that select this add-on are eligible for consideration in this category. Additionally, all projects that place in the Top 10 of the competition will automatically be considered.

Rules & Terms

Please visit https://screencraft.org/stageplay/ for full list of rules, terms, and agreements.

At the program's request, Coverfly will automatically remove your title page for you if you include one when submitting to this program.

1. Submissions are accepted via electronic submission only.

2. Entry fees are as listed on the site and checkout form. No coupon or discount is applicable on a previous entry.

3. Optional feedback from a professional reader may be requested at the time of entry. Requests for feedback can be done through Coverfly.

4. Any play submission longer than 120 pages will incur a $.50 per page overage fee for each page over 120 if it does not include feedback and $1 per page if the entry does include feedback. The maximum page limit is 150 pages.

5. There is no limit to the number of projects you may submit.

6. Entries must be received on or before the deadline dates by 11:59PM Pacific Time, and submission fee payment must be made in full at time of the submission. All entry fees are non-refundable.

7. All submitted material must be owned by the writer(s), however the material may be based on other works not owned by the writers.

8. Material must be submitted by the writer. Material written by writing teams must be submitted by one of the writers, with consent of the other(s).

9. If a writing team is chosen as a winner, prizes will be given to the person who submits the project. Each team is responsible for dividing or sharing any prizes awarded as they deem fair (whether there is a cash value or not).

10. Substitutions of either corrected pages or new drafts of the entered material will be allowed for a limited time with a $6 reentry fee through Coverfly. Please proofread your script carefully before submitting.

11. It is recommended that original material be registered with the WGA or The Library of Congress before submitting to any competition, however we do not require registration.

12. Contact info may be included on the cover page of the submission, however it is not required. ScreenCraft uses Coverfly to manage submissions and automatically removes cover pages before projects are read by the judges.

13. ScreenCraft claims no ownership nor option on your work. All ownership and rights to the projects submitted to this contest remains with the original rights holders.

14. The decision of the judges will be final and cannot be contested in any manner. There is no score on a scorecard that guarantees advancement to the next level as advancement will be based on all scores in the competition.

15. In the event a juror, partner organization, or prize partner is no longer able to serve in their specified capacity, ScreenCraft will make its best effort to secure a replacement. ScreenCraft is not responsible for the failed delivery of any prize package by a juror, sponsor, or partner organization.

16. ScreenCraft reserves the right to change deadline and announcement dates at any time.

17. ScreenCraft reserves the right to amend these rules at any time.

18. All writers at least 18 years of age are eligible. However, a writer who has earned more than $50,000 (or equivalent currency) from professional writing services for film or TV in the preceding 12 months or $500,000 (or equivalent currency) from professional film or TV in the proceeding 10 years is not eligible. (Contest winnings not included.)

19. All persons from anywhere in the world are eligible; however the material submitted must be in English (occasional dialogue in other languages is acceptable, if subtitle translation is provided).

20. All material submitted to other competitions or contests are eligible for this contest.

21. The material may have been written at any time.

22. Material should be submitted in standard format, font, spacing and margin.

23. We have no preferences regarding title page content. Title and name of writer would suffice.

24. All material must be submitted electronically as a PDF. Broken files or non-PDF files may be accepted, but if the file cannot be read ScreenCraft will not judge the submission.

25. Prize winners may be required to sign an affidavit of eligibility and proper tax documentation before prizes are released.

26. By entering the competition, user acknowledges their eligibility for the competition. ScreenCraft may verify all eligibility requirements at the finalist stage of the competition and before distributing any prizes.

27. Projects based on underlying material not owned by the writer are accepted as samples, so long as the script itself is indisputably written by the writer and that the script does not contain any plagiarism.

28. Former Grand Prize or Category Winners of the competition may enter so long as it is NOT the same project that won in a previous year. Any other placement in previous years does not disqualify the project from being entered this year.