Play-by-Play is Pioneer Theatre Company’s annual new play reading series. Since 2014, the series has provided developmental rehearsal periods for several new plays each season. The playwright works alongside a professional director and cast for a weeklong residency, culminating in public readings of each play available to theatregoers at a very modest cost. The readings occur on our mainstage or other select locations around the University of Utah campus.

Details regarding PTC’s 2024 iteration of Play-by-Play will be announced in spring 2024.

Previous Play-by-Play readings that have received full PTC productions include Alabama Story by Kenneth Jones in 2015, “i” by Jeff Talbott in 2018, Ass by Ellen Simon in 2020, and The Messenger in 2022.  Macbitches by Sophie Macintosh was featured in Play-by-Play 2022 and received its Off-Broadway premiere shortly thereafter. Please see our season archives for more examples of plays we’ve produced and developed.

For the residency, to-and-from travel costs are covered by the theatre, in addition to a stipend. The playwrights stay at the Meldrum House, our guest-artist apartment building two blocks away from the theatre.

Submission Instructions:

• New plays for the June 2024 festival may be submitted for consideration beginning August 15, 2023.
• Please direct questions and submissions to Associate Artistic & Outreach Director, Eric Jackson: Eric.Jackson@PTC.Utah.edu.
• We accept submissions either by agent or with a letter of recommendation. A letter you already have on file is acceptable. (Repeat submitters do not need a letter of recommendation.)
• Include a sentence or two about the play’s developmental history, if any. Plays that have received a full production are not eligible.
• Lengthy synopses are not necessary: a one-liner is fine for submission.
• Separate files with character breakdowns are not necessary, though a character page inside the script is required.
• Please send whole scripts in PDF or Word, no samples.

Seeking: 

• Big family dramas, comedies, and political pieces that put character before issue.
• While open to genre pieces, we prefer thrillers, mysteries, and simple futurist pieces over experimental forms.
• Pieces that are unproduced and still need development (plays at the early or middle-draft stage).
• In particular, pieces that play well in a large house and are not “intimate” in setting, tone, or visual experience.
• Casts up to ten, in most circumstances.
• No musicals, one-person plays, or two-handers.

Response time can be six months.