OOTW2023 – Call for Play Submissions

 

**UPDATED 15 April 2023: Submissions for the 2023 OOTW Festival and Forum are now closed. Please see our FAQs for information about other ways to share your work with us throughout the year.**

Out of the Wings Festival 2023

Omnibus Theatre Clapham Tuesday 11 to Saturday 15 July 2023

Call for Play Submissions

Out of the Wings is a collective whose mission is to explore and promote theatre in translation from the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds.  A flagship event in our activities is our annual festival, which in 2023 will celebrate its seventh edition.

Taking place at Omnibus Theatre, Clapham, from 11 to 15 July 2023, the festival will feature a script-in-hand reading of a new English translation of a play every evening.  The readings will be presented as part of a wider festival which will include daytime workshops, talks and discussions, and networking events. As in previous years, we seek to present five plays from five different countries. 

As well as targeting the general public, academia and the Hispanic and Lusophone communities, we will also aim to attract the theatre industry, namely individuals and organisations within theatre who may have an interest in taking the presented plays forward for further work or, ideally, a full production.  In previous years, several of the plays read at our festival have gone on to be read again, published, or produced, both in the UK and overseas.

Plays translated into English from Spanish, Portuguese or any other language commonly spoken in what are generally known as the Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking worlds, will be eligible. Multi-authored and co-translated plays will also be accepted.

Forum 2023 

The festival commences with our theatre translation forum, “Worldmaking on Stage: Community-building in and through Theatre Translation”. The call for presenters for the forum is also now open and can be found here.

Submission and Selection Process

Plays should be submitted in their English translation. Your submission should be accompanied by our play submission form (download here). The translation should not have been performed or published before in the UK.

There is no overarching theme, and the plays may be from any period, and any length, with any number of characters.  

We assume that only one play per evening will be presented but double bills may be possible if running times allow.

Complete submissions should be sent to info@outofthewings.org.  

Timeline

The deadline for submissions is 14 April 2023.  

The plays will be selected by the Out of the Wings team. The selection will be announced in early May, when publicity for the Festival will begin in earnest.  

Casting, promotion and other pre-production work will continue throughout the spring and into summer.  

Production

The plays will be performed by professional actors, and directed by professional directors. All actors and directors will receive a fee. 

The plays will be performed as readings, rather than as scratch or semi-staged productions.  While additional elements such as lighting and design are not ruled out, this is expected to be very limited, with a focus on the text.  Additional funding for such elements will not be available.  Rehearsals will take place over two days, including the day of the reading.

Promotion

Out of the Wings will use its collective resources to publicise the event and ensure as high a number of attendees as possible.  In 2022, our third time at Omnibus, we built on our already growing audiences, and we are delighted to be returning to Omnibus in 2023.   A selection of translations from previous festivals have gone on to be published as part of OOTW’s partnership with publisher Inti Press.

The main method of advertising will be online.  As well as targeting individuals and organisations through email, a website will be created for the event, along with a social media presence on Twitter and other platforms.  We will also receive marketing support from the venue.  Since 2021 our marketing has also included TV and radio appearances by members of our team, and a mail-out to literary managers and artistic directors of all major London theatres and some further afield.

Writers and Translators

Translators and playwrights will each receive a fee of £75 (split in the case of multi-authored works) and will be invited free of charge to all of the festival readings. We will explore the option to fund expenses for writers or translators wanting to attend from overseas, but this cannot be guaranteed.

Complimentary/Guest tickets for writers and translators

In addition to their own complimentary entry to their reading, writers and translators will be offered one additional complimentary ticket each to their own reading to offer to a guest of their choosing.

NOTE: Before submitting a translation for consideration, the person submitting should ensure they have the permission of the writer/s, the translator/s, their estate/s or their representatives as appropriate and that all parties are fully aware of the terms of this call-out. Please confirm and provide evidence of this permission when submitting.

Out of the Wings Collective, February 2023

Updated 24 February with info about play length and number of characters.