2015 Winner!

The count is in.  View this email in your browser It's all over but the shouting... The 2015 National Tour was awesome - and decisive. Audiences all over the country overwhelmingly voted, and we can declare a winner before our scheduled final event!   The Winner of the 2015 Jewish Playwriting Contest is..... Belfast Kind by Margot Connolly Margot's play takes us to Northern Ireland in the heart of the Troubles - 1983 - as 12-year old Tzippy struggles with her friends, her parents, and her Bat Mitzvah. How do you come of age when the stakes are life and death? What is Jewish identity in a place so consumed by the clash of other cultures?  Hear Margot talk about the origins of her play. ​*|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|*  This year's contest finished early - click here to read about how the National Tour played out, blow by blow and city by city. ​*|END:IF|* Margot's wonderful play will be the Featured Workshop of OPEN: Festival of New Jewish Theater!! Get Your Seats Right Now! A huge mazel tov and THANK YOU to our 200 submitting playwrights, the Top 10 playwrights, the 70 Artist Panel Readers, the 20 NY Final Selection Readers, the 50 Community Readers, and the 400 audience members who joined us to let their voices be heard. And a special Todah Rabah to the Creative Producers who made our Tour possible - Devorah Richards of Continuum Theater in Chicago, Dylan Russell of JCHS in San Francisco, Sara Bookin-Weiner at the New Center in Boston, and Wendi Stein and Sharon Panitch of Theatre Kavanah in Vermont. You all rock.  Next stop, New York City. June 26-29, 2015 Stay tuned for the announcement of all the Festival Projects and our stunning list of artists. (Hint: Broadway may be involved). Save the Date: June 18, 2015 The JPP and Michelle Slonim are putting together a Comedy Night Fundraiser with a hilarious line-up of Jewy comedians to support OPEN . Put it on the calendar now! *|IF:ARCHIVE_PAGE|*(A quick recap - in October, 200 playwrights submitted plays; in January we picked a Top 10; local panels in each city read all 10, then picked 3 to present. Plays received 1 point for being selected for by a community, and 3 points for winning a Live Contest. Point summaries and voting percentages are listed for each city.)   Chicago, March 22, 2015 3 Points: Belfast Kind by Margot Connolly 1 Point: Last Night by Elisabeth Frankel 1 Point: To Kill a King by Joshua Ford San Francisco, March 26, 2015 3 Points: Belfast Kind by Margot Connolly  1 Point: Diaspora by Gary Jaffe 1 Point: The Place We Built by Joshua Ford Boston, April 13, 2015 3 Points: The Owl Girl by Monica Raymond 1 Point: Love Me Tender by Atar Hadari 1 Point: #julys by Sam Lahne   Vermont, April 19 & 20, 2015 3 Points: Belfast Kind by Margot Connolly 1 Point: The Owl Girl by Monica Raymond 1 Point: Diaspora by Gary Jaffe But what happened to Brooklyn? Since Belfast Kind already has 9 points, it will win the contest no matter what happens (The Owl Girl could get to 7 points). We have decided to take the resources we had dedicated to the Brooklyn Contest and do full readings of the two runner up plays in New York!!! That means you can see Monica Raymond's The Owl Girl and Gary Jaffe's Diaspora in the 2015 OPEN Festival this June! Awesome!!!*|END:IF|* A Few Notices from our Friends! Last Week to see the World Premiere of 2013 OPEN Festival Alumni Martyrs Street by Misha Shulman. Special Treat: JPP Advisory Board Member Ari Roth in Conversation after the 4/26 Performance!  NY-based Jewish artists who love good food, good wine, AMAZING artistic colleagues from all disciplines and an aesthetic journey through ancient Jewish texts - apply to LABA: Labatory for New Jewish Culture's 2016 Fellowship BY SUNDAY, APRIL 26. Theme this year: Copyright *|CURRENT_YEAR|* *|LIST:COMPANY|*, All rights reserved. *|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|* *|LIST:DESCRIPTION|* Our mailing address is: *|HTML:LIST_ADDRESS_HTML|* *|END:IF|* unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences  *|IF:REWARDS|* *|HTML:REWARDS|* *|END:IF|*

2014 OPEN Festival Launches the Best of New Jewish Theater

15 plays, 80 artists, 400 audience members, 1 revolution in Jewish theater.