Nan’s Notes: June 2023
Reflecting on FY23, and Looking Ahead to NNPN's 25th Anniversary
Nan Barnett welcoming attendees at New Plays, New Ways
It’s hard to believe that National New Play Network’s 24th year is almost over. Our 32 Core and 82 Associate Member Theaters truly represent the breadth and depth of the new play field in America. NNPN’s Rolling World Premiere program supported twenty-three productions of twelve new plays as they began or completed their RWPs in cities like Rochester, Sarasota, Chicago, and Boston, as well as Wilton Manors, FL, Shepherdstown, WV, and Williamston, MI. We placed rising new works leaders with Member Theaters in the Bay Area, Boston, DC, and Philly, and funded new play development via Collaboration Funds awarded to emerging, rising, and acclaimed playwrights working with Member Theaters large and small. NNPN’s most far-reaching program, New Play Exchange®, continues to provide scripts of new works to theater-makers and theater-lovers around the world. Very soon its subscribers will be able to access NPX2.0’s added features and functions, and by year’s end, a platform specifically built to answer the needs of actors for monologues, scenes, and new plays, will be introduced to the field.
NNPNers enjoying the California sunshine as they listen to that morning's panel
For me however, NNPN’s greatest accomplishment for Fiscal Year 2023 was our New Plays, New Ways convening in Sacramento last month. Nearly two hundred NNPNers and guests gathered in Core Member Theater B Street’s beautiful Sofia spaces to discuss the future of new works and NNPN. Those of you who know me know how much the “networking part of the Network” means to me, and how strongly I believe that it is central to the success of NNPN. I am grateful to the Board, led by B Street’s Lyndsay Burch, and donor Robin Meyers for the support that allowed us to bring together such an astounding group of theater-makers, to our speakers and panelists and session leaders and committee members for their great good work, and to our attendees for their willingness to share their talents, experience, and passion for what we do.
And I can’t say enough about Team NNPN. Our preplanning team, on the ground staff (including the incredible “Uber Jack” Reuler), and the staff of B Street made all our convening dreams - the return of the in-person Pitch Session! Slam and Scenes! Great swag! Planning for the plan!! - come true.
I am more excited about the future of NNPN than I have ever been.
Especially as we begin to plan for our 25th Anniversary and our first-ever National Showcase of New Plays in New York. Associate Member Queens Theatre will host us April 19th-21st, 2024. Mark your calendars and hold on to your NNPN hat – yup get ready for a rollout of some major merch! – it's gonna be a big one.
Nan Barnett
NNPN Executive Director