We have received 50 submissions.
Submissions are now closed as of 10/19/23 at 10 AM.

2024 Festival Theme: Critical Social Issues Take Center Stage.

Any short or full-length play must match the theme of our 24th season.

Showcasing the Works of Female Playwrights from March 7 -16, 2024.

In conjunction with Women’s History Month, Powerstories Theatre is proud to host the fourth annual international Voices of Women Theatre Festival live in the USF College of the Arts and online, utilizing our season theme, “Critical Issues Take Center Stage.”

As part of our 2024 Season, we will be doing a hybrid program – a combination of in-theatre staged reading productions during the first week and digital, view-on-demand performances in the second week. The international festival offers an artistic platform empowering, encouraging, and enabling diverse voices to inspire audiences worldwide through the gift of sharing strong voices and meaningful stories. Powerstories is proud to provide opportunities for artists and playwrights of all genres to share their original short and full-length plays and musicals with our expanding community and audiences near and far.

Powerstories’ Voice of Women Festival demonstrates our dedication to diversity and inclusivity, encouraging submissions from female-identifying playwrights, playwrights of color, and other underrepresented groups. We are committed to promoting intersectional equity and encourage a wide range of submissions related to the theater of historically marginalized populations, including Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities.

The Voices of Women Theatre Festival offers up to six short plays (ten minutes) and six long plays and musicals (up to sixty minutes) during the run of the festival, highlighting humorous, heartbreaking, eye-opening, and conversation-starting performances that match the season theme of “Critical Social Issues Take Center Stage.” Please keep this theme in mind when submitting your work for consideration.

For the 2024 Voices of Women Theatre Festival, Powerstories Theatre has up to 12 opportunities for talented women playwrights from around the world. We are accepting the following:

60-minute digital pre-recorded plays or musicals
60-minute plays or musicals produced live at USF College of the Arts
- Up to three 60-minute plays will be selected to be produced by Powerstories as staged readings
- Up to three 60-minute plays or musicals will be self-produced and performed live at USF College of the Arts
10-minute plays self-produced and performed live at USF College of the Arts

In addition to the pre-recorded plays submitted digitally, each live-in-theatre production will be recorded and available as part of the online Voices of Women Theatre Festival in the second week.

There is no fee to submit your play.

Deadline October 23, 2023

ABOUT POWERSTORIES THEATRE

The mission of Powerstories Theatre is to stage true stories to open minds and hearts and inspire action worldwide. The purpose is to create, present, and celebrate true stories to inspire courage and deepen our understanding of ourselves and others.

Powerstories Theatre is a professional non-equity theatre that produces true or historic-themed plays of social importance. For nearly 24 years, we have helped others know the value of true stories through published and original theatre, workshops, festivals, online true story platforms, and programs for youth. Each year we have produced four main stage productions in our 40-seat black box theatre, in addition to several Festivals and the Girlstories Leadership Theatre Program. In June 2023, we lost our space to developers; however, it gave us the opportunity to bring live theatre to new and exciting spaces and stages in 2024.

We are a member of Theatre Tampa Bay, a local organization that promotes and supports professional theatre in the Tampa Bay Area. In 2010, Powerstories won The Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, presented to Powerstories at the White House by First Lady Michelle Obama. Powerstories has also won the Spirit of Humanity Award from the DeBartolo Foundation, the Community Hero Award from The Tampa Bay Lightning Foundation, and The WEDU Arts and Culture Award. In 2022 Powerstories won the Joseph Parra Courageous Theatre Award by Theatre Tampa Bay.

FOR PLAYWRIGHTS: A CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

NEW THIS YEAR, Powerstories is producing up to three 60-minute plays on stage at USF College of the Arts as a stage reading for the playwrights!

ALSO NEW THIS YEAR, we are also accepting 10-minute short plays for live in-theatre self-production.

Powerstories is accepting 60-minute plays and musicals, both for self-production live in-theatre March 7-10, 2024, and digital pre-recorded, view-on-demand over March 11-16, 2024.

Playwrights can decide:

Do you want Powerstories to produce a staged reading of your 60-minute play on stage at the USF College of the Arts?
- Powerstories will produce a staged reading of up to 3 of the one-hour shows. We will hire a director and the director will audition for the roles and manage the project. These will all be performed at the USF stage on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.
Do you want to self-produce your 60-minute play or musical on stage at the USF College of the Arts?
- You will get the use of the USF Stage for their production (full or staged reading) on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Each submitting playwright will be responsible for all costs related to casting and directing the show to achieve the festival goals.
Do you want to self-produce your 10-minute play on stage at the USF College of the Arts?
- - You will get the use of the USF Stage for their production (full or staged reading) on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Each submitting playwright will be responsible for all costs related to casting and directing the show to achieve the festival goals.
Do you want to submit a self-produced digital 60-minute play or musical production?
- In your pre-recorded digital performance, we understand some of you will be presenting a staged reading, and some a fuller production. Each submitting playwright will be responsible for all costs related to casting, directing, and mounting the show to achieve the festival goals.

Each entry will be numbered and time-stamped, and we will stop accepting plays/musicals after the 5oth submission with the first 25 submissions given priority. Last day to submit is October 23, 2023.

What We Need

An artistic committee will review all of the 50 plays. Up to six 10-minute and six 60-minute selections will be announced by December 15, 2023, or earlier on social and by email notification. Submissions will be reviewed in consideration of the following criteria:

Your submission is congruent with the mission of Powerstories Theatre – staging true stories to open minds and hearts.
Your submission must match the season theme of “Critical Social Issues Take Center Stage.”
Your submission supports diversity and inclusion.
Your submission reflects overall quality and is a fully developed and well-written play.
Strongest consideration will be given to new works and new playwrights.
Your submission is no shorter than 10 minutes and no longer than 60 minutes. Productions longer or shorter will not be eligible.
If you select to submit digitally, you are willing to have their play view-on-demand for the second week of the festival.
You will be available for a playwright promotional interview before the festival and a talkback Q&A on Zoom during the course of the festival. The directors and cast are also highly encouraged to attend the Q&A.
You are expected to actively promote your productions to boost ticket sales and share pertinent marketing information related to the festival.
If selected, we trust that your play will be exclusively presented in conjunction with Powerstories Theatre’s Voices of Women Theatre Festival and will not be produced during promotion time (January, February, and March) leading up to or during the festival.

What We Provide

Powerstories Theatre will provide the following:

Consideration to be a Powerstories Theatre main stage production in our Season of Shows.
- In 2023, Carolyn Gage’s submission from Voices of Women 2021, “In McClintock’s Corn” opened our 23rd season on the main stage.
If selected as one of the three 60-minute plays for Powerstories to produce, you will receive a fully-directed staged reading with a Powerstories director and local talent, lightning and sound assistance, and the use of USF College of the Art’s 50-seat black box theatre
If self-producing, you will receive the use of USF College of the Art’s 50-seat black box theatre for your 10-minute play or 60-minute play or musical
If a digital submission, you will receive a platform to showcase your 60-minute play or musical, view-on-demand during the second week of the festival
Marketing assistance includes but is not limited to our website with photo, bio, play synopsis and schedule, playwright interview to use for promoting your play, press release, and graphics for social media
Daily social media marketing
Logo design, if needed
An All-Access Festival Pass to enjoy your fellow playwrights’ works
All live-in-theatre 10-minute plays and 60-minute plays or musicals will be videotaped and included as part of the digital festival in the second week
All plays produced live-in-theatre will have a digital recording available to the playwright after the close of the festival

Awards Available

Powerstories will select local and national judges to review all productions for consideration for acrylic awards for Powerstories’ Best Short Play and Best Full Length Play.

Winners will have accomplished the following:

A well-written engaging script
A quality production to include acting and directing
Generate successful ticket sales through the marketing of your play

2024 Festival Theme: Critical Social Issues Take Center Stage.

Any short or full-length play must match the theme of our 24th season.

Playwrights will be notified of acceptance by December 15, 2023 or sooner.