New Works Festival
August 14, 15, & 16
August 14, 15, & 16
About the festival
The Producers Playhouse New Works Festival is a celebration of creativity and community, showcasing original works by local Lynchburg artists. This grassroots event invites playwrights, composers, choreographers, designers, and performers to share fresh, innovative pieces from plays and songs to dances and costume designs. The goal is to provide a welcoming platform where artists of all backgrounds can experiment, collaborate, and bring new ideas to life.
Held in an intimate black box style setting, the festival embraces minimal sets and props, placing full focus on the raw talent and storytelling at the heart of each work. With an open, inclusive atmosphere and opportunities for artists across disciplines, the New Works Festival is a vibrant space for connection, discovery, and artistic growth in the Lynchburg creative scene.
Who should submit?
The Producers Playhouse New Works Festival is open to anyone with a passion for theatre and a creative idea they want to share. We welcome playwrights, composers, lyricists, choreographers, directors, performers, designers, and theatre-makers of all experience levels. Whether you're developing a brand-new one-act play, showcasing songs from an original musical, presenting a choreographed dance piece, displaying costume or scenic design concepts, or experimenting with a theatrical work that doesn't fit into a traditional category, this festival is designed to give your ideas a place to grow.
You may be a great fit if your work embraces creativity, collaboration, and live performance. We are especially interested in pieces that can thrive in an intimate black box environment, where storytelling, artistry, and imagination take center stage. Previous productions are welcome, provided you hold the rights to the material, but we strongly encourage works that are still evolving and looking for an audience. If your project explores something new, sparks conversation, celebrates theatrical innovation, or simply shares your unique artistic voice, we want to see it.
Review & selection process
All submissions to the Producers Playhouse New Works Festival will be reviewed by a selection committee made up of theatre artists, directors, performers, and creative collaborators from our community. Because the festival welcomes a wide variety of theatrical works, each submission will be evaluated based on criteria appropriate to its format, including creativity, artistic merit, audience engagement, feasibility within the festival setting, and overall contribution to the spirit of the event. Our goal is not simply to identify the most polished work, but to discover projects that demonstrate originality, theatricality, and potential for meaningful connection with audiences.
Submissions will remain open through June 19, 2026. Following the submission deadline, the selection committee will review all entries and curate a festival lineup that reflects a diverse range of voices, disciplines, and creative approaches. Selected artists will be notified of their acceptance on June 26, 2026. While we anticipate receiving more submissions than we can accommodate, we are committed to fostering a supportive and encouraging environment for all artists who choose to share their work with us.
How to submit
Submitting to the Producers Playhouse New Works Festival is simple. To be considered, artists must complete the official submission form and upload all required materials. Because our festival celebrates a wide range of theatrical disciplines, we welcome submissions including plays, musicals, song cycles, dance pieces, design presentations, devised works, and other theatre-related projects. All submissions must be original works, or the submitting artist must hold the necessary rights to present the material.
As part of the submission form, applicants must upload a copy of their work in either PDF or Word document format. Please be prepared to include the following materials: a 250-word synopsis of the work, a character or participant breakdown, the number of acts, the number of locations or settings, and any relevant production history or special production requirements. Musical submissions should also include links to demo recordings, scores, or other materials that help illustrate the project.
To ensure we can accommodate as many artists as possible during the festival, all submitted works must have a running time of 30 minutes or less. One-act plays and similarly scaled presentations are strongly encouraged. If you experience any issues uploading materials through the submission form, including file size limitations, please contact us at theproducersplayhouse@gmail.com and we will be happy to assist. We look forward to discovering the creative work our community has to share.