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Skylight Theatre Company's PlayLab 2014
- Submissions Now Being Accepted -

Skylight Theatre Company's PlayLab, headed by award-winning playwright and screenwriter, Shem Bitterman, will be accepting submissions from Oct.15th until Dec. 1st for their 2014 season.

"The focus of PlayLab will be the development of a brand new play, starting from scratch," Bitterman says. "Writers will come into the Lab with a notion or no notion at all, and over the course of the year will have the opportunity to fully develop their plays. On given nights professional directors, guest writers or actors may drop in to discuss the plays in progress, or aspects of the craft. Also, we are very fortunate to have access to several STC stages as well as actors and directors from the Beverly Hills Playhouse acting school to help put scenes on their feet. My intention is to give PlayLab members all the tools they need to create plays as they see fit. The hallmark will be openness and mutual respect. The main thing is to offer writers a place to create freely and to realize their visions."

Limited to a handful of invited members, PlayLab will meet for nine three-hour working sessions from December through May. Writers are required to attend at least seven of the nine scheduled sessions, which will take place every two weeks on Sundays from 7pm to 10pm. As part of the process, chosen writers should be prepared to discuss their material prior to writing. PlayLab will also host full readings of each of the completed plays. All members are encouraged to attend and support their fellow writers at these readings.
PlayLab will culminate in an eight-week-long festival of workshop productions and readings of the completed plays, taking place at the Skylight Theatre from October to December 2014.

Writers interested in participating should submit a ten-page sample of their work along with a resume, no later than December 1, 2013 to: playlab@skylighttheatre.com

You will be notified of our decision by Dec.15th.

2013 PLAYLAB participants include: Boni B. Alvarez, Ron Burch, Doug Cooney, Tony Foster, Tim Furlong, Sigrid Gilmer, Mayank Keshaviah, Zach Laputin, Tom Lavagnino, William Nedved, Larry Pontius, Chelsea Sutton, Lucy Wang and Kit Williamson

Shem Bitterman: An alumnus of Julliard, where he studied acting, Shem got his M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing at University of Iowa. Plays and awards include: Open House; A Death in Colombia, Influence, The Job (winner the LA Times Critics Circle Award for Best New Play in 1998 and transferred to off- Broadway; it also won The Stanley Award and was published by Samuel French and Smith & Kraus in their Best New Plays of 1998). Harm's Way, winner of the 2008 PEN USA Literary Award, runner-up for the 2007 Smith Prize; Man.gov (2006 LA Weekly Nominee for Best Play), Sensitive Skin at The Elephant Theatre, The Circle (2005 PEN USA Literary Award Finalist and 2001 Best Playwright SCA Fringe Festival); Ten Below (at the WPA, starring Kevin Conway) and Anthony Edwards, winner National Play Award and Lee Korf Playwriting Award); Peephole (at Geva, winner Davie Award, starring Josh Brolin, subsequently made into a movie); Night-Side (Actorʼs Theatre of Louisville, starring Pamela Gien); The Ramp (at South Coast Rep, winner California Playwrightʼs Competition); Beijing Legends (at The Mark Taper Forum and the Pacific Jewish Theatre, winner Fund For New American Plays and Mixed Blood Versus America); Self Storage (at the Odyssey, subsequently made into the film Tinsletown, starring Arye Gross); Iowa Boys (at The Actorʼs Studio, winner CBS/FDG New Plays Award). Other feature films include: Betty & Coretta, starring Angela Bassett and Mary J. Blige; The Job, directed and produced by Shem, starring Joe Pantoliano, Ron Perlman and Taryn Manning; Out Of The Rain, directed by Gary Winick, starring Bridget Fonda; Off The Lip, directed by Robert Mickelson, starring Marguerite Moreau; Open House, directed by Shem, starring Shareen Mitchell. Shem taught screenwriting, playwriting and acting in the California Prisons and in Beijing, China.

SKYLIGHT THEATRE COMPANY is a vibrant expanding community of artists committed to developing and producing new works that resonate with the richly diverse population of Los Angeles. STC's focus on educating and nurturing artists through its various INKubator development programs offers playwrights a home to test and refine their work in front of an audience. Since 2011 Skylight Theatre Company has presented works from more then 120 local writers as part of 74 staged readings, 19 World Premiere productions and 28 workshop presentations. The world premieres of Influence (Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle nomination for Best Actor and two LA Weekly nominations for Best Play and Best Production), Hermetically Sealed (2011 Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle nomination for Best Actress, an LA Weekly nomination for Best Ensemble and the LA Times List of top ten productions for 2011) Mad Woman (2011 Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle nomination and an LA Weekly Award Winner for Best Solo Performance) and Sexsting (2013 Ovation award nomination for Best Actor) reflect the level of excellence in the work that this company continues to produce.

from LA Culture Net