Nan’s Notes: February 2024
National New Play Network is a very busy place these days. It's the middle of our fiscal year, so that means we are doing all the FY24 work while getting ready for FY25. Rolling World Premieres are happening across the country and partnerships for next year's Rolls are forming at an astonishing rate. Many of our Member Theaters are gearing up for 2024-25 season announcements, so we're seeing lots of folx at Member Theater meetings and pitch sessions as they look for the play that's "just right" for their audience.
New Play Exchange continues to grow - there are now more than 56,000 play profiles on the site and our sales to colleges and universities are having another record-setting month - and the new version - NPX 2.0 - will begin rolling out its enhanced features in the next few weeks.
We will begin calling for applications for the FY25 Producers in Residence cohort, Collaboration Fund projects, and new Board Members very soon.
And of course we're spending lots and lots of time planning for the upcoming 2024 National Showcase of New Plays and 25th Anniversary Celebration - we will select the plays and playwrights that will be featured next week, we've welcomed NNPN Producer in Residence alum Robby Lutfy as our Showcase Producer, and are meeting regularly with our hosts at Queens Theatre to prep for the weekend. We're planning parties and panels and, of course, plays and playwrights and new play-makers and look forward to sharing a detailed schedule with you soon.
I've been on the NNPN Florida Turnpike Tour for the last couple of months. I was thrilled to be included at the opening night of Associate Member Theater Palm Beach Dramaworks' Rolling World Premiere of The Messenger by Jenny Connell Davis and the kickoff at Theatre Lab (Boca Raton) of the RWP of Andrea Stolowitz' Berlin Diaries. Then I went back to Dramaworks for their Perlberg Festival of New Plays (featuring works by Affiliated Artists Andrew Rosendorf and Kirsten Greenidge, with special appearances by NNPNers Jenny Connell Davis and Mark St. Germain.) I also joined Associate Member Gulfshore Playhouse (Naples) for their gorgeous, timely, funny, and provocative World Premiere of NNPN's Smith Prize for Political Theater, The Refugees by Brent Askari, the premiere of the new translation of La Gringa by Carmen Rivera at City Theater (Miami), a lovely production of Lyndsay Ferrentino's Ugly Lies The Bone, which NNPN worked on with the Kennedy Center MFA Playwrights Workshop in 2017, at Florida Studio (Sarasota), and will be closing the loop this week with a trip back to Dramaworks for the world premiere of Christopher Demos-Brown's The Cancellation of Lauren Fine, which has just been extended.
We're also busy looking for sources of funding that will help support our programs and awards for the development, production, and future of new American plays. Know someone we should talk with about what we do? Contact me at nan@nnpn.org if you have individuals or foundations within your network that would like help us increase the Network's impact. Or join our growing list of sustaining donors by making a monthly donation yourself. You can find more information via the QR code below.
More soon!
Nan Barnett
NNPN Executive Director