A Room of Her Own is pleased to announce the Shakespeare’s Sister Playwriting Fellowship, an unparalleled opportunity for a woman playwright living in the United States to hone her craft and develop a new play in the course of a year-long engagement with three world-class organizations.
In addition to $10,000 the cash prize, the winner will be awarded a residency with the Hedgebrook community in the spring of 2015, a spot in AROHO’s biennial Retreat for Women Writers at Ghost Ranch in August 2015, and a project residency with the Lark Play Development Center in the fall. All travel expenses will be covered.
Developed in order to nurture the generation and development of new work by female playwrights, supporting the winner from inspiration all the way to working with professional actors and directors to realize that vision, the Shakespeare’s Sister Fellowship will join the ranks of AROHO’s other coveted awards—including the $50,000 Gift of Freedom, the $1,000 To the Lighthouse Poetry Publication Prize, and the Orlando Prizes in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.
The fellowship’s creator and mentor is Ellen McLaughlin, original “Angel in America,” renowned playwright, and long-time AROHO advisor.
In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf writes, “if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think, then the opportunity will come and the dead poet who was Shakespeare’s sister will put on the body which she has so often laid down.” The Shakespeare’s Sister Fellowship seeks to establish that habit of freedom, to make possible that courage.
The fellowship will be awarded to one woman on the basis of merit and readiness to commit to writing a play during the fellowship year. The deadline for the first round of applications is July 31st. In addition to a few short essay responses, applicants must submit an excerpt from a full-length play. The excerpt and any explanatory material are not to exceed 30 pages. Successful applicants will be asked to submit another written response and the full-length play (from which the first 30 page excerpt was taken) by September 1st. The winner will be announced on November 1st.
