Apply for the 7-Year Residency

All resident playwrights are required to show documents for I-9 form verification; these documents will be reviewed (as necessary) throughout a writer’s seven-year residency.

Please note New Dramatists is not in the position to be a visa sponsor.

Playwrights outside the tri-state area must have the availability to spend time in New York City and utilize New Dramatists’ services, and the readiness to participate both in-person and virtually in our dynamic artistic community.

Please note New Dramatists' ability to provide reimbursement for travel and/or housing is dependent on the status of dedicated funding. Staff work with each resident to customize residencies that meet individual goals, and we will discuss current available travel and housing resources as part of that process.

1) Click the button to “Begin Application”  

2) Follow the prompts to Confirm your Eligibility

3) Enter Your Contact Information.

4) Upload Your Current Playwright/Artistic Bio, Resume, or CV

5) Upload “Blind Copies” of Two Original Full-Length Works (Plays and/or Libretti-books of musicals). Each submission must be a single work that constitutes a full evening of theatre. For example, a 90-minute play without an intermission is a full-length work.

- Please do not put any identifying information in the script documents. Identifying information includes: your name, contact information, production/development histories, awards, your agent, special thanks, hyperlinks, actors/production team, etc.
- Please remove your name from the file properties.
- Please include a character list at the beginning of your script document.
- Every script page must be numbered.
- Each script must include the play’s title.
- Scripts must be in PDF format. 

6) Supplemental Materials – You may submit music samples to accompany a libretto to showcase the style and tone of the larger work. You may submit up to five tracks.

7) Submit Application Read and agree to our privacy policy. Click “Submit Your Application”. After you complete this step, you will no longer be able to make changes to your application. Once your application is submitted, you will receive an automatically-generated confirmation email.

PANELISTS: Over the course of ten months, from September to June, a seven-person panel, comprised of New Dramatists’ current resident writers, alumni playwrights, and outside theatre professionals, read the submissions. The panel is completely different every year. Special efforts are made to balance the panel in terms of aesthetic sensibilities, gender, race, ethnicity, geography, and age, as diversity is crucial to the adjudication process. The only people who know the panel members’ identities are the New Dramatists’ admissions staff. 

CIRCULATION: All applicants submit two full-length works and designate an “A” play and a “B” play. All “A” plays are read in the Initial Round. As applicants advance through the process, their “B” plays are read. During the Initial Round, New Dramatists alumni read alongside panelists and reading is blind, i.e., applicant names are not attached to the plays being read. In the Second and Final Round, names are disclosed to the panelists. In addition, each current resident playwright has the option to recommend up to two applicants who are guaranteed to have both the “A” and “B” plays read by different panelists during the Initial Round. This does not impact the applicant’s status.

DECISION-MAKING: The panel meets three times between January and June to discuss the plays and, by consensus, winnow the list of applicants and ultimately determine the incoming group. They will select five playwrights for residency this year.

NOTIFICATION: Status notifications are sent on a rolling basis: the first round goes out in February. The second round goes out in April. We will also email finalists and request artistic statements from them in April, with a late May deadline. The final round goes out in June. Writers who are accepted into New Dramatists are notified in June. If your mailing address and/or other contact information changes, please notify @email