Student Jane Chambers Playwriting Contest

The Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award recognizes plays and performance texts created by cis/trans/female-identifying women that present a feminist perspective and contain significant opportunities for female performers. This competition is open to both graduate and undergraduate students. The Jane Chambers Award for emergent playwrights encourages diversity of style and content. All forms of drama are accepted, including solo performance work.

The winning play will receive a staged reading at the annual Women and Theatre Program pre-conference, which will be held in August prior to the Theatre in Higher Education Conference (ATHE). The student winner will receive a $250 cash prize and a year's membership in Women and Theatre.

Please click here or to the right to access the application for the 2024 award!

Jane Chambers 2024 Student Playwriting Award

If you have questions, please

email: studentjanechambers@gmail.com.

2022 Winner

WITH FELLOWSHIP by Amanda Keating

WITH FELLOWSHIP bounces back and forth through time, between: The present day – when a team of scientists in a German lab study the fossilized dental plaque found in the jawbones of women buried at a medieval nunnery – and the 11th century – where a German nun is hard at work illuminating manuscripts in collaboration with a nearby monastery. How does the work of these women artists and women scientists support, inspire, and combat each other across the bounds of time?

Amanda Keating (she/her) is a playwright and translator from Western Mass, currently pursuing her MFA in Playwriting from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. Plays include WITH FELLOWSHIP (EST/Sloan Commission, O'Neill Finalist), TEACH/TEACH (Playwrights Realm Finalist, Leah Ryan Honorable Mention, Studio ‘62), RETREAT (Ensemble Studio Theatre, Two Headed Rep), OF SOLITUDE (Martha's Vineyard Playhouse), HOW CAN I KEEP FROM SINGING (University of Iowa), GO THAT WAY (O’Neill Semifinalist, Studio ‘62), The Cleanup Crew, the fog comes on little cat feet, adaptations of TARTUFFE and MISS JULIE (Two Headed Rep), and others. She is a former member of EST/Youngblood and her short plays have been produced by The Williamstown Theatre Festival, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Rule of 7x7, and Samuel French. Her short play, this movie, was a winner in the 2017 OOB Festival and is published by Samuel French. An alumna of The MacDuffie School, Williams College, and the National Theater Institute, Amanda grew up in Russell, MA and currently lives in Iowa City. http://www.amandackeating.com/

Instagram: @keatskeating

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/keats.keating/

New play exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/plays/805530/fellowship

2021 Honorable Mentions

Honorable Mention: bloody noses by Matilda Corley

What's the cost of winning? Riley, Lou, and Teddy are about to find out. Their friend and teammate, Bec, is currently unawake in the hospital after being drugged and assaulted on a date.... assaulted by their own team athletic trainer...who seems to have done the same thing to more than just Bec. As a story, bloody noses follows the unraveling and aftermath of one female collegiate soccer team as they come to terms with the dark reality of the crushed fairytale dreams, they have been fed their whole lives as young female athletes.

Bio: Matilda Corley Schulman is a writer/actor based in Los Angeles California. Her path to theatre and storytelling were anything but straight. Out of high school she was recruited to Oklahoma State University's D1 Equestrian Team, before transferring to UC Berkeley where she finished her English degree with a minor in Creative Writing and Theatre. There she studied under Philip Kan Gotanda before being accepted to USC MFA program where she is about to start her third and final year of study. Her stories tend to explore what it means to be a young woman (in all its shades of anger, love, joy, and pain) in a world that tends to want us to be anything but...some of the darker stories "little girls" are told not to talk about. And if she can manage to tie in a fairytale or Shakespeare reference while bringing some of the magic her younger self believed in to life along the way, all the better.

Instagram: @matildacorleyschulman

Facebook: Matilda Schulman

New play exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/plays/1864906/bloody-noses

Honorable Mention: The C Word by Sarah Lina Sparks

The C Word follows the story of five girls waiting for a job interview to become associate curator at a museum. While waiting for the interview, they are unexpectedly trapped by the hysterical oracle (Hystoracle). In order to escape, they must choose someone to sacrifice as tribute to the C-monster.

Sarah Lina Sparks (she/her) is a mixed-race Filipina playwright based out of Southern California. She is an undergraduate theatre student at the University of California, Los Angeles, script coordinator for Samahang Pilipino Cultural Night at UCLA, and a member of the Dramatists Guild of America. Her previous work includes the award-winning Silent Night (International Thespian Festival; published by Concord Theatricals), The American Iconography Project (Out of the Blue Theatre Company at UCLA), Goodbye Billy the Butterfly (Anew Theatre Company), and Sunshine and the Sea of Lost Things (Ghostlight Theatre Ensemble Company). Additionally, Sarah Lina was a finalist for the California Young Playwrights Competition in 2019 for her play If Only Mabel Wore Trousers. Her works are largely inspired by feminists’ issues, her Filipino heritage, and the unique experience of coming of age in the new millennia.

Instagram: @Sarah.Lina.Sparks

Twitter: @sarahlinasparks

New Play exchange: https://newplayexchange.org/plays/1873368/c-word