2007 Call for Entries
Verse drama has a very low profile in the contemporary literary scene—an astonishing fact when one considers that many of the greatest plays, from the Greeks to Shakespeare to T. S. Eliot and Archibald MacLeish, were written in verse. Many of our finest poets, including Edna St. Vincent Millay, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, and Anne Carson, have written or translated plays in poetry, while others—Dana Gioia, J.D. McClatchy, and Cornelius Eady, to name a few—have written opera libretti.

Like other Pegasus Awards, the Verse Drama Prize seeks to bring renewed attention to an underrecognized form. In this case, the Poetry Foundation also hopes to encourage poets to work in a new genre and thereby bring fresh life into the art as a whole.

Submissions accepted: April 1, 2007–June 15, 2007

Description

The Verse Drama Prize honors a living poet over the age of 18 who has written an outstanding original verse drama in English. The work must be unpublished and must not yet have been produced for an audience. The winner receives $10,000, as well as a public staged reading of the manuscript in Chicago. The production will take place in 2008.

Submission Guidelines

There is no charge to submit for this contest. Performance running time should be no more than 120 minutes and no less than one hour. Plays must not have been previously produced, although workshop readings are acceptable if no admission was charged. Translations are not accepted. All submissions should include a synopsis and character outlines. Submissions must be received via mail, in standard play script form; they should be typed and double-spaced. The author’s name and complete contact information should appear on the title page only. Please include a self-addressed stamped postcard if you wish to be notified of manuscript receipt. Due to the volume of mail we receive, no manuscripts can be returned. Submissions are limited to one manuscript per person. This is an occasional contest that is not held annually. All submissions will remain the property of the playwright. The winner must grant exclusive first production and publication rights to the Poetry Foundation. In order to submit for the 2007 contest, follow the above guidelines and send manuscripts to the address below, postmarked between April 1, 2007, and June 15, 2007. The winner will be announced at the Pegasus Awards ceremony in the fall of 2007. All prize payments will be subject to and made in compliance with IRS requirements.

The Poetry Foundation
Attn: Verse Drama Prize
444 N. Michigan Ave.
Suite 1850
Chicago, IL 60611