The SheATL Festival is Going Digital in 2020!
In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the SheATL Summer Theater Festival will be fully digital in 2020! Tickets will be on sale in July — a ticket will get you a private link to a live-streamed performance, so you can watch from the comfort and safety of your own home.
We empower women writers to self-produce their work, in a safe environment with subsidized costs and mentorship along the way. And we’re so excited to continue that work in a new city!
The selected 2020 SheATL Summer Theater Festival Shows are:
AUGUST 27th at 8pm: A Safe Space, written and directed by Rhyssa-Kathryn Marie
AUGUST 28th at 8pm: Persephone and The Hum, written by Christina Jundt and Becca Del Plato, directed by Christina Jundt
AUGUST 29th at 8pm: Tough Love by Jocelyn Rick, directed by Lauren Morris
Tickets on sale in June!
Written by Christina Jundt & Becca Del Plato
Persephone’s world is constant summer heat, prescription pills, and the same damn party every single night. When addiction pulls her underground, the earth grows cold, and Persephone’s loved ones must journey to save her from hell.
Written by: Rhyssa-Kathryn Marie
When Archer Porter gets fired for alleged sexual harassment, and his perfect protected world comes crumbling down, he decides to take matters into his own hands. A Safe Space delves into the deep rooted issues of sexism, racism and prejudice in the workplace and the importance of inter-sectional feminism.
Written by: Jocelyn Rick
After a colleague discovers an incriminating note, the newly appointed principal of a prestigious private academy confronts the student believed to be responsible. But as more layers are revealed, she finds herself questioning the motives of everyone involved — as well as her own loyalties. Tough Love is a full-length straight play that examines the lines between condemnation and compassion, and how these lines fluctuate depending on our level of authority and our personal incentives.
About the SheATL Summer Theater Festival
What is a Theater Festival?
The typical theater festival is an opportunity for playwrights to self-produce their work in full onstage, for a paying audience. Festivals have multiple shows which all share resources (like the theater itself, front-of-house staff and supplies, and technical equipment), making the process far less expensive for everyone than producing your show in full on your own. If you’ve done readings already and feel like you’re ready to take the next step of seeing your piece fully staged, a festival is probably the right fit for you!
How is SheATL Different?
We pride ourselves on providing more for less. As a registered non-profit, we’re able to charge no participation fee in Atlanta (compare to other festivals), and you get the full SheATL staff on your team to co-produce your show with you! We take care of most of the logistics, so you can focus on the creative parts of producing your show.
Specifically, we provide a Show Mentor — that’s a SheNYC staff member who guides you along the way. We also have a tiered ticket pricing program, in which patrons can choose to donate $5 per ticket back to the writer.
Are you a Georgia-based woman writer with a full-length show?
Script submissions for the 2020 Atlanta Festival are now CLOSED! But read on below to be prepared for next year!
What kind of shows we accept:
- Full-lengths only (running time between 1 and 2 hours)
- Plays, musicals, or adaptations
- The writing team must be at least 50% women-identifying
- The writing team must be Georgia-based
What kind of shows we do not accept:
- Short plays or short musicals (less than one hour)
- Pieces that are adapted from works that are not public domain or that you can’t prove you have the rights to produce
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes the She ATL Arts Summer Theater Festival different than other theater festivals?
We’re working to create a network of professionals and artists that are devoted to promoting the voices of women in theater — not just put up your show and never hear from you again. We have meetings where all of the writers gather together to mingle, and hope that the other writers and artists involved in the festival will become lifelong friends, mentors, and supporters.
Does it cost anything to participate in the festival?
For our first year in Atlanta, we’re trying something new: no festival participation fees! That means it’s free to be a part of the program. You will be asked to put down a security deposit to secure your place in the festival, if selected, which you will receive back at the completion of the festival program. This protects us in case someone doesn’t follow through with their production.
Otherwise, see above for the list of things She ATL provides versus what you provide: you are financially responsible for those elements. Your show mentor can help you set up a Kickstarter or do a fundraiser to help cover those costs!
What are we looking for?
You’ve got an awesome show. We’ve got an awesome festival. It’s like a match made in heaven.
We look simply for shows that are high-quality and written by women. We like to have a good mix of genres in each festival – plays, musicals, comedies, dramas, experimental works, and more. We also are partial to shows with themes that fit our mission of women’s empowerment. But at the end of the day, we want to show the world that women writers produce high-quality work that deserve to be seen on Broadway and stages around the country – so, the number one factor in our decision-making is how well-written your show is.
Who can apply?
Any woman-identifying writer, or writing team that is at least 50% women, is eligible to apply. So, have a three person team? If music and lyrics are both by women, and the book is by a man, you’re good to go. If you’re a man with a half-finished work, consider pairing with a woman writer, and we’ll take ya! We’re also taking adaptations that are directed or adapted by women, even if they were originally written by men. We only accept full-length shows for the Festival (no short plays), though note that there is a 2-hour run time limit for your performance.
What kind of shows can apply?
Musicals – musicals of any size, shape, and form are welcome to apply. There is especially a lack of women composers getting their work produced in NYC, so we definitely love getting submissions from musical ladies.
Plays – again, plays of any size, shape, and form are welcome to apply! Bonus points if it has a strong female character at its center.
Adaptations – are you a woman director or adapter who wants to do a reverse-gender production of King Lear? We love that. Just make sure you are actually able to obtain the rights to your show (sometimes, special rights have to be obtained if you want to adapt or change gender roles), or better yet, take a public domain play.
How many shows are picked and how will we pick them?
We’re aiming to take 3-4 shows for our She ATL Summer Theater Festival, though we reserve the right to pick as little as 2 or as many as 5 depending on what the submission pool is like.
We’re judging the shows based on two things: The quality of the writing, and the relevance to our mission. Mostly, we’re focused on giving female writers the notoriety and publicity they deserve, so the subject matter of your show will only play into the judging if we have a really tight race between two shows. If we’ve got one slot left and two equally awesome shows, and one is about Napoleon and one is about Molly Pitcher, we’ll probably pick the Molly Pitcher one.
How does the selection process work?
You submit your scripts and application materials by the submission deadline. We pass your script around to a team of script readers, so each script will be read by at least two different people. The shows that get the highest ratings get passed along to the final round, where they will be read by at least two more script readers. Starting in February, we’ll be notifying people if they’re finalists.
By the end of April, all of our selected participants will be notified, and we can start getting to work!
If I submitted a show in the past, can I submit again?
You sure can! You can submit the same show again, particularly if you’ve revised it, or a new show. If you’ve already had a show produced in the Festival, you can also submit a new show for this year.
Will we get feedback on our submissions?
Due to the high volume of submissions, we’re not able to automatically offer feedback on every script. However, if you email us after the script vetting process is over, we’re happy to send you notes from our readers!
