Kumu Kahua Theatre and Bamboo Ridge Press Announce The Winner of the January 2023 Go Try PlayWrite Contest
For Immediate Release 02.15.2022
Kumu Kahua Theatre and Bamboo Ridge Press Announce
The Winner of the January 2023 Go Try PlayWrite Contest
Where: Kumu Kahua Theatre, 46 Merchant Street, Honolulu
Contact: Sara Ward, officemanager@kumukahua.org, 536-4441
HONOLULU HI – The January Go Try PlayWrite winner is Elizabeth Shannon for her play
Shoot Your Shot.
The January Prompt: Thinking a little beyond Valentine’s Day. Write a scene, 10 pages maximum, about a first kiss. Have fun with this. It can be a couple, or polyamorous relationships, or an individual. A woman and a man. A man and a man. A woman and a woman. Or any number of combinations. Any gender, any race, any religion, any class, any sexual orientation. It could be a collision of differences, or a meeting of perfect matches. It could be a human and a pet, or two pets, or an insect and an empty soda can, or a flower and a bee, or a nail and a hammer and a piece of wood.
Elizabeth Shannon (ELLIS) is an actor, playwright, and director. She is a sophomore at Marymount Manhattan College, working to obtain her BFA Acting and BA Writing for the Stage degrees. She worked professionally with and was an apprentice at the Maryland Ensemble Theatre (MET), and was a second year member of the Theatre Focus in the Academy for the Fine Arts. Her play, Smoke, was performed virtually with University of Texas El Paso’s student organization Ensemble. Her play, What Are You Hiding?, which she co-wrote with Morgan Southwell, was a winner of Baltimore Centerstage’s Young Playwright’s Festival, and a finalist in The Secret Theatre’s Act One: One Act Festival, as well as part of the live-streamed reading series, “The Future Was Now”, by Quarantined Theatre Company, which can be found on YouTube. Her play, Nuclear, was a winner of The Blank Theatre’s 28th Annual Young Playwrights Festival, received an honorable mention in the 43rd Annual Marilyn Bianchi Kids’ Playwriting Festival with Dobama Theatre, and was produced with The Trailblazers Collective. Her play To Be Determined, received a staged reading with Rapid Lemon Productions’ Variations on Vision and is the high school winner for the Northern Arizona Playwriting Showcase. Her play, Loaded Language, was a winner of #Enough: Plays to End Gun Violence, a project comprised of 7 plays by young women addressing gun violence. Its world premiere was with South Coast Repertory and is published in an anthology with Playscripts. Her play, Even When the World Burns, I Am Still With You was a quarter finalist in Screencraft’s Stage Play Competition in 2021, and a shortlister with Wild Imaginings Waco Epiphanies New Works Festival 2022.. Her play, Mama Bushwick is Dead, was a winner of The Blank Theatre's 29th Annual Young Playwrights Festival, and had a year long residency with Young Playwrights Theatre in Washington, DC. Her play, here's to all the broken girls was a winner of The Blank Theatre's 30th Annual Young Playwrights Festival. She has performed professionally and has had her plays produced nationally and internationally. Instagram: @_elizabethshannon
Each month Kumu Kahua Theatre co-sponsors this playwriting contest with Bamboo Ridge Press in their combined effort to nurture local playwrights and authors. The monthly Judges are theatre practitioners from the Hawaii theatre community. All plays submitted are read by Kumu Kahua Theatre Artistic Director, Harry Wong III.
Kumu Kahua Theatre is now accepting entries for the February 2023 Go Try PlayWrite Contest. The prompt for the month of February is: A historical meeting. Write a scene, 10 pages maximum, about a meeting between two historical figures that ends in a conflict. Like, Rosa Luxemburg meeting Elon Musk at a Walmart, or Lili’uokalani meeting Hilary Clinton at a ABC Store.
CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT
Contest Rules: Each entrant must write a 5-page monologue and/or a 10-page scene based on monthly requirements. Each month a new prompt will be chosen by Kumu Kahua Theatre’s Artistic Director. The prompt will be given on or by the 1st of the month and the due date will always be the last day of the month. All entries must be written in traditional play format; instructions on this format can be found here: https://www.dramatistsguild.com/script-formats courtesy of the Dramatists Guild.
There will be one winner each month. Scripts will be submitted to the judges anonymously. Winners will receive $100.00 and a subscription to Bamboo Ridge Press.
Look for further future projects using scripts submitted for this contest - coming soon!
Kumu Kahua productions are supported in part by the NME Fund of the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation, the Island Insurance Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020 and the American Rescue Plan of 2021, McInerny Foundation (Bank of Hawaii, Trustee); The State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, through appropriations from the Legislature of the State of Hawaiʻi, The AAPI Community Fund, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Hawaiian Electric Company, Alexander & Baldwin, The John R Halligan Charitable Fund, Spectrum/Charter Communications, Vacations Hawaiʻi, ABC Stores, the Gloria Kosasa Gainsley Fund, Hawaiʻi Public Radio, The Kim Coco Fund for Justice of the Iwamoto Family Foundation, Edric Sakamoto, Ron and Rachel Heller, and other foundations, businesses, and loyal patrons.