Jax State Southern Playwrights Competition

Southern Playwrights logoThe Competition

The Jax State Southern Playwrights Competition seeks to identify and encourage the best of Southern playwriting.  The competition seeks one-act plays that are written by a native or resident of the South and that engage with the Southern experience, broadly conceived and conceptualized. 


The Award

An annual award of $1,000 will be presented to the first-prize winner, and the play will receive a reading as part of Jacksonville State University’s Kaleidoscope Festival of the Arts.  Jax State Southern Playwrights Competition reserves the right to use the name of the play and the author's name in all publicity and promotions. 

In the event of any subsequent production or publication of the winning manuscript (or versions thereof), and as one of the stipulations of the award, the author agrees to indicate in a footnote or in the playbill that the script was named winner of the Jax State Southern Playwrights Competition for 2025, and, if applicable, that the play was produced as a public reading at Jacksonville State University.


The Rules

  • Playwrights must be native to or a resident of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, or West Virginia.
  • Plays must engage with the Southern experience, broadly conceived and conceptualized.
  • Entries must be original one-act plays. No musicals or adaptations will be accepted. Run time should not exceed 60 minutes.
  • The playwright may submit only one play.
  • All entries must be typed and submitted as Microsoft Word or PDF documents.
  • All entries must include a cover page with play title, playwright’s name, contact information for playwright (email address, physical address, phone number), residential connection to the south (current or former resident, plus state), and one-paragraph synopsis of script.
  • Legal clearance of all materials not in the public domain will be the responsibility of the playwright.
  • Submission is restricted to plays that have not had previous Actors’ Equity productions. Plays which have had workshops, readings, or showcase productions are eligible.
  • Jax State Southern Playwrights Competition reserves the right to accept or reject any play submitted.
  • Jax State Southern Playwrights Competition reserves the right to declare no winner.
  • Decisions of the judges are final.
  • Entries must be received no later than March 2, 2025.
  • The winning playwright may be invited to speak virtually at the play’s reading at the Kaleidoscope Festival of the Arts (slated for April 5, 2025).
  • Staff is unable to acknowledge the entry of submissions.
  • In the event that, for any reason, the winning script cannot be read at the Kaleidoscope Festival of the Arts, Jax State Southern Playwrights Competition shall only be held responsible for the playwright's award of $1,000.


Send play submission with cover page to:

Dr. Marija Reiff

mreiff@jsu.edu 
Department of English
Jacksonville State University
700 Pelham Road North
Jacksonville, Alabama 36265-1602

For questions, contact mreiff@jsu.edu

Digital submissions are preferred

 

Previous winners have been: Make Haste Slowly by D. K. Beyer (1989), Play It As It Lies by Granville Burgess (1990), The Dreamland Bus by Kenneth F. Graham (1991), Liberty by Sarah A. Lawrence (1993), The Exact Center of the Universe by Joan Vail Thorne (1994), A Higher Place in Heaven by Pamela Parker (1995), Mole Hill by Terry Sneed and Elaine Ferguson (1996), A Seacoast in Illyria by Ronald Amos (1997), Mustard Seed by Kenneth Heaton (1998), Tennessee's Rose by Daniel DuPlantis (1999), The Bayou Merchant by Daniel DuPlantis (2000), Blood of the Bear by Maureen McGranaghan (2001), Kentucky Wings by Robert Leland Taylor (2002), Wise Women by Ron Osborne (2003), Heroes by David Muschell (2004), Was by Barry Bradford (2005), Piano by David Hall (2006), Other People's Dreams by Evan Guilford-Blake (2007), Death by Darkness by Elizabeth Orndorff (2008), Conquistadors by Barry Bradford (2009), Southbridge by Reginald Edmund (2010), Dead Towns of Alabama by Barry Bradford (2011), A Tennessee Walk by Rob Winn Anderson (2012), The Vanishing Point by Nedra Pezold Roberts (2013), To Tread Among Serpents by Kelly McBurnette-Andronicos (2014), The Shackles of Liberty (2015) by Wim Coleman, Lillian Paula Carson by John Barrow (2016-2017), Right by Nedra Pezold Roberts (2018), Winston Drives Big Jim by Hubert Grissom (2019)