Happy Birthday, New Play Exchange!

National New Play Network’s field-altering program that has become the world’s largest digital library of scripts by living writers celebrates five years of life this week as it looks forward to the next five years - and beyond.

National New Play Network, the country’s alliance of nonprofit theaters that collaborate in innovative ways to develop, produce, and extend the life of new plays, is delighted to celebrate the fifth birthday of the New Play Exchange®. This tool has fundamentally shifted how new work is shared and discovered, and with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s recent grant of $550,000 over three years for its continued development, the future is undeniably bright for this essential site.

The New Play Exchange (or NPX® as it is commonly known) includes more than 30,000 plays, most of which are available for immediate download. Launched in January of 2015, the NPX is a unique online tool that has significantly advanced the ways in which new plays are shared, discovered, and produced.  The database features robust search filters, crowd-sourced recommendations, subscription levels for organizations and for both early-career and seasoned readers and writers, as well as the interactivity of a social networking site. Five years after its launch, the NPX has proven to be an overwhelming success, with almost 18,000 subscribers. In 2019, the addition of a Higher Education subscription level has made the NPX accessible to more than 380,000 students. Today, our subscribers range from non-practitioners with a passion for theater to directors, designers, producers, actors, and literary and artistic leaders in theaters around the world.

See the full release here.