New Plays?

The term 'new plays' gets tossed about a bit. Different groups define it in different ways, and use it to refer to varying levels of exposure. In the interest of clarity, we'd like to elaborate on what we mean when we say 'new play.'

In the the broadest sense, we consider a new play to be any work that has yet to make its way into the contemporary canon.  A new play has probably been written recently, in the last five years for instance, and while it may not be entirely unknown it is likely not to be familiar to theater-goers in the Chicago area.

There is a bit of a fanaticism in the theater community for premiering new plays, so much so that it has actually become detrimental to new works. Theaters clamoring for the world premier of a play tend to pass by scripts that have had one or two productions; therefore a large number of worthy plays never make it past their premier.  Electing to be a part of the solution, we take special care that our selection process doesn't discriminate against plays with prior productions.

If you would like to learn more about this and other issues surrounding the development of new theater in the US, we highly recommend checking out the study Outrageous Fortune published by the Theater Development Fund.