Deadline for submissions is
September 1, 2021.

Cleveland Public Theatre (CPT)

CPT’s mission is to raise consciousness and nurture compassion through groundbreaking performances and life-changing education programs. CPT’s programming agenda is to produce work that is outside the mainstream, offering a much broader range of work available to the Cleveland public and expanding the impact and originality of theatre across the country. CPT strives to make work that is excellent, extraordinary, locally impactful, and nationally competitive.

About the Call for Submissions

CPT seeks 10-minute scripts for the 2021/2022 season production of 10 Minutes to Midnight: 9 Quirky Plays for the Holidays, a montage of short holiday plays directed by Caitlin Lewins. The goal is to create a party-like celebration with a variety of themes, aesthetics, and content. Is it a variety show? Is it a cabaret? Is it a 10-minute holiday play festival? We will see…

The holidays bring joy, communal meals, loneliness, pressure, parties, warm hugs on cold nights, romance, disaster, hope, dysfunction, and so much more! We encourage you to be inspired by the breadth of holiday happenings or non-happenings. Humor and heart are both essential pieces of this larger event.

“The Rules”

• Scripts should be eight to ten minutes in length.
• Plays should align with the kinds of work CPT produces (i.e. outside the mainstream somehow in form or content).
• One entry per playwright/creator.
• Plays must be unproduced at time of submission.
• Plays may be musicals or contain music, but music is not required.
• An ensemble will be cast for the production, with actors performing in multiple plays.

Selected Scripts

Cleveland Public Theatre will:

• Produce script as a part of 10 Minutes to Midnight: 9 Quirky Plays for the Holiday, December 2 – 18, 2021.
• Pay the playwright/creator of selected play $250.
• Provide complimentary tickets for playwright/creator (plus one) to any performance of 10 Minutes to Midnight: 9 Quirky Plays for the Holidays.

Playwright/Creator will:

• Provide artistic content, which must be original and unproduced.
• Retain the rights to the script but grant CPT the right to produce the first production.
• Attend opening night of 10 Minutes to Midnight: 9 Quirky Plays for the Holidays.
• Enter into an agreement with CPT related to subsequent productions that will stipulate crediting CPT.
• Engage in the rehearsal and production processes (i.e. attend a few rehearsals for play development, if possible and as needed).

Submit to CPT

Please submit the following materials electronically as an attachment to clewins@cptonline.org.

• PDF Script with title page including title, cast breakdown, and setting(s).

• In the body of your email, include your name, phone, email, and address.

Materials will not be returned.

Deadline for submissions is September 1, 2021.

Director Biography

Caitlin Lewins is a writer, composer/musician, performer, director, and designer/crafter. Caitlin was named a 2019 Finalist for the National Directors Fellowship and a 2019 Finalist for The MITTEN Lab. Recently, Caitlin directed the Zoom Premiere of Savory Taṇhā (sixteen short plays performed by a rotating ensemble), and co-directed Awakenings, A Celebration of Cleveland Public Theatre, a one-hour television special created in collaboration with WKYC Studios and The Cleveland Film Company (Regional Emmy Nominee, Telly Award Winner). Caitlin was Assistant Director of Clue at Cleveland Play House (directed by Casey Hushion). Caitlin was awarded a 2016/2017 Nord Family Foundation Playwright Fellowship which culminated in the World Premiere of Everything is Okay (and other helpful lies), a dark musical comedy co-created with Melissa Crum which recently received readings inside the 2019 New York Musical Festival (NYMF). Caitlin joined the CPT staff in 2013 as Story Connector, became New Play Associate in 2014, and transitioned into her current role in 2017. Caitlin completed the 2013/2014 Joan Yellen Horvitz Director Fellowship which culminated in the production Left in Ink which she conceived, directed, and co-created. Previously at CPT, Caitlin co-directed (with Dan Kilbane) and music directed 44 Plays For 44 Presidents and created and performed The Cleveland Line Dance as a part of Light the Lights, Ol’ Moses CLE! (A Wild Holiday Romp). Caitlin line produced Entry Point (A New Play Development Program), four Road to Hope events in the Spring of 2016, line produced Exact Change and The Santaland Diaries at Playhouse Square, and the Nord Family Foundation Playwright Reading Series. Caitlin directed Canon Fodder – a Nord Fellowship Reading, music directed Frankenstein’s Wake, and assistant directed/contributed to The Loush Sisters Love Dick’ns: Great Expectations. Caitlin co-created and directed Edison and Ford which appeared in Air Waves (Part Three of the Elements Cycle), and completed her third year in the Directing/Theatre Creation class. In the 2012/2013 season, Caitlin was Assistant Director/Stage Manager to Raymond Bobgan for Rusted Heart Broadcast and made her writing/directing debut at CPT with The Environmented in Earth Plays (Part Two of the Elements Cycle). Recent/favorite performances include The Loush Sisters Love Dick’ns: Oops!…They Did it Again; Everything is Okay (and other helpful lies); Light the Lights, Ol’ Moses CLE! (A Wild Holiday Romp); Red Ash Mosaic (workshop); She’s Wearing White…; Air Waves (Part Three of the Elements Cycle); Earth Plays (Part Two of the Elements Cycle); Bird Behind the Curtain (Big Box 2013); 13 Most American Dreams; Grizzly Mama; and The New Century. She is a member of the Class of 2019 for Cleveland Bridge Builders, a program of the Cleveland Leadership Center, and serves on the Board of Northwest Neighborhoods CDC. Caitlin is a graduate of Baldwin Wallace University, where she studied Theatre, Philosophy, and Music.