Annual Conference
Growing Forward: Creating Accountability and Embracing Change
This is National New Play Network’s call to courage for the new play field and the American theater writ large. During this one-day virtual convening, we gather our Member Theater staff, Affiliated Artists, and Ambassadors to share their experiences, curiosities, and the work they are doing to embrace change and create systems of accountability. We invite our friends in the larger field to join us for select events via YouTube live, including a Playwrights’ Slam that will feature NNPN Affiliated Artists who experienced an interruption in their NNPN program experience since the spring of 2020, as well as discussions about the key issues alive in our field today.
At NNPN, we believe in the power of collaboration to spur innovation and create a just, equitable new play ecology. We believe that creating an aesthetically diverse ecosystem that values humans and their unique perspectives is the way we will thrive, not just in this moment but as change continues to play its role in and beyond our lifetimes. We hope you will join us as we explore what’s happening now and look ahead to what’s possible as we work to grow forward together.
In order to facilitate Network connectivity, this Annual Conference is limited to Member Theater staff, Affiliated Artists, and Ambassadors. We will be making selected conversation recordings available here in late November! ###
PLAYWRIGHT SLAM | November 13
Inspired by the work of Doug Langworthy and Lynde Rosario at the Colorado New Play Summit, the Playwrights Slam has become a staple of National New Play Network convenings. During these informal affairs, playwrights share excerpts of their own work in their own voice. Audiences have a chance to catch a work in progress or a favorite passage straight from the source, and send the writers a direct current of love, praise, and support in return.
For our November 13th Slam, we welcome NNPN Affiliated playwrights whose work with NNPN was somehow interrupted in last eighteen months. Whether for an MFA Playwrights’ Workshop that shifted online, a Collaboration Fund project put on ice, or a Rolling World Premiere stopped in its tracks, these writers have all rolled with the punches and this Slam gives us a chance to celebrate not only their work but their resilience, too.
CONFERENCE DAY | November 14
Sessions will include…
Conversation with leading NNPN Staff, Affiliated Artists, and Field Leaders who are doing the hard work of bringing change and accountability to many aspects of their work.
Time with NNPNers who are regionally proximate to one another, with an eye to creating and deepening relationships with those who share geography.
NNPN Member Theater Staff, Affiliated Artists, and Ambassadors: join via Mighty Networks.
If you’re not sure if you are an NNPN Constitutent, or if you have any questions about this convening, please send a note to Engagement Director Jess Hutchinson