It’s TABOO! Island Theatre is accepting submissions of original 10-minute plays for 10th annual Ten-Minute Play Festival – deadline March 1, 2023

Margaret Millmore | Posted on January 11, 2023 |

For the first time in the ten-year history of Island Theatre’s Ten-Minute Play Festival, they’ve decided to have a theme: Taboo!

“Our intention for adding a writing theme would be to spice things up in our tenth Festival with a little novelty that we hope will provoke and entice writers into fresh creative territory and stimulate audiences with another facet or dimension to their appreciation of the plays,” says Board Member, Steve Stolee. “The writing theme is employed by many film and play festivals and ever since we started Island Theatre Ten-Minute Play Festival in 2012, we have entertained discussions about adding this as a shaping tool, or writers’ prompt to our submission guidelines.”

However, Steve noted, that decision has always been shelved in the interest of keeping things simple…until now. “We started our planning with brainstorming lists, including a survey of other theater festival choices searching for a word / topic that would expand rather than limit creative thinking—we quickly saw a tricky business that could paint us into the proverbial corner!” he explained. “The word TABOO kept making it to the short lists and ultimately inspired us as having the desired wide interpretations and implications while striking a cheeky, colloquial familiarity. It lives easily in both comedy and tragedy; can inform scenes that are scalable from light romantic or family situations to political, religious or ethical high stakes. It is a well-known word and concept without seeming clichéd or over used.”

As with previous Ten-Minute Play Festival submissions, a panel of judges and the programming committee will evaluate each entry for “powerful, intelligent theatre, compelling characters, well plotted dialogue, story-telling and coherent concepts that fit into a program that we believe will be entertaining to our audience.”

All Kitsap County playwrights—established and aspiring—are invited to submit original plays, no more than ten minutes in length, for consideration for the Festival. Deadline for submissions is March 1, 2023.

The contest is open to all playwrights who are high school age and older, and who are past or present residents of Kitsap County, work in Kitsap County, or have a strong Kitsap County connection.

For more information and submission guidelines, go to www.IslandTheatre.org.

About Island Theatre: The idea for Island Theatre came about in 1994 by Louise Mills and friend Michele McCrackin. Their first production, The Play’s the Thing by P.G. Wodehouse (adapted from a play by Ferenc Molnár) was performed in Bainbridge High School’s auditorium. It was a huge success, and at a dinner for the cast and crew, held at the end of the successful show run, they decided to start a theatre company.

Island Theatre was born and named at a meeting later that year. The first board members were: Mary Braden, Steve Buechler, Kate Carruthers, Michele McCrackin, Louise Mills, Steve Nicolet; and Cynthia Sears, with Steve Stolee serving as its first president. In 1995, Island Theatre became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and produced its first official play.

With some exceptions, Island Theatre productions are free to the community, with donations gratefully accepted. Since its inception, Island Theatre has presented close to 200 plays at the Bainbridge Public Library or on another stage, such as Bainbridge Performing Arts.

Island Theatre includes three main program efforts: Island Theatre at the Library, a series of staged readings of plays; Island Theatre at Your House, a series of open play readings hosted in private homes; and the annual Ten-Minute Play Festival. The mission of Island Theatre is to provide low-cost, high quality theatrical programming, and over the years they have unofficially added the intention to provide learning and access to theatre arts. With the I.T. Ten-Minute Play Festival they offer a showcase for the original playwriting by Kitsap County authors; stage directing opportunities for up to ten local directors; roles for 25 to 30 actors and summer opportunity for our Kitsap communities to celebrate this local talent and creativity.