ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

The Concord Theatricals Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival (OOB) is the nation’s leading short play festival. Beyond playwrights, the Festival has given voice to many emerging directors, performers and production companies. As part of our unique model that requires playwrights to partner with sponsoring producers, we’ve hosted prestigious theatre companies on our Festival stage such as The Royal Court, Circle-in-the-Square, Ensemble Studio Theatre and The Yale School of Drama. It is an honor to provide a home for so many exceptional artists, and we’re humbled when thinking back to the many great performances that have happened on our stage.

HOW THE FESTIVAL WORKS

The Concord Theatricals Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival offers a prize of publication and licensing for six short plays in the notable OFF OFF BROADWAY FESTIVAL PLAYS series. The application period for the Festival begins in in late fall and lasts for two weeks. Playwrights may submit one unpublished play or musical that may be up to 15 pages in length and a max run time of 15 minutes (ideal run times are between 8-13 minutes). All submissions are read by the Festival’s staff, and 30 semi-finalists are chosen to present their play during Festival week. Festival week starts with four nights of staged reading sessions that are presented in front of a judging panel comprised of professionals representing various parts of the theatre industry. At the end of each session, the judges deliberate and one to three plays are selected to move on to the Festival Finals. During the Finals, the Festival staff will watch the final 10 to 12 plays and select six authors to be a published in the Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival series, which is published and licensed by Concord Theatricals.

The author is responsible for securing a producing company (or self-producing) their work in the event that the work is selected as a Festival participant. The responsibilities of the author and/or producer include, but are not limited to, the casting of non-equity actors; the appointment of the director (if applicable); rehearsals; transportation; costumes (if needed); and for all fees and expenses attendant thereunto. Concord Theatricals will provide a theater space will include a basic lighting plot with limited pre-set general light cues and basic sound equipment. Music stands and chairs will be available at the theatre. Concord Theatricals will further provide all front- and back-of-house personnel and a board operator if needed.

OOB ALUMNI PLAYWRIGHTS

The Festival has served as a doorway to future success for many aspiring playwrights, and has helped launch the work of such notables as Theresa RebeckShirley LauroSheila CallaghanBekah BrunstetterSteve YockeySaviana Stanescu, David Johnston and Daniel Pearle. In many cases, Festival participation has sparked agent contracts for Festival finalists.  Many past Festival playwrights have gone on to win major playwriting awards and honors, as well as to have major theatrical productions of their works staged. Read more about our “classes” of past OOB winners below:

A Middle Passage by Yide Cai (蔡逸得)
Yide Cai (蔡逸得) is a poet, translator and award-winning playwright from Shenzhen, China whose work has been featured at the OOB Festival, La MaMa, The Tank, Kanini Fest and more. Yide also works internationally as a producer, director and dramaturg with credits including German National Theater Weimar, Prague Shakespeare Company and Chinese premieres of Dead Poets Society, The Book of Will and Lydia & The Troll. He is an MFA in Playwriting candidate at Boston University and holds a BA in Playwriting & German Studies from Emory University.

ALIFORNIA by Daniel Holzman
Daniel Holzman is a playwright from San Francisco. Recent work includes: Berlindia! (The Tank), Middle School Play (The Brick), OLIVES (Clubbed Thumb ECWG), and Me & Who (O’Neill Finalist).

archy and mehitabel one last time by J.R. Stephens
J.R. Stephens is a New England-based playwright whose work explores mortality, memory and human connection through characters poised at life’s thresholds and navigating the pull of change. An active member of the Dramatists Guild of America, his plays include Testament of the Body (Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival), A Quiet Light (10:4:TENN; Sharon Playhouse) and Sunset from the Atlantis (National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences). In addition to writing, Stephens is a performer, educator and librarian, all of which inform his interest in storytelling, history and the preservation of overlooked voices.

Bump –> Set –> Spike –> Bruise by Diana Lobontiu
Diana Lobontiu (they) is a Romanian-American playwright, actor, educator and former HS varsity volleyball player(!). They explore the intersections of masculinity, dominance + oppression, and loneliness. MFA Brooklyn College. dianalobontiu.com

Godbird by Nurit Chinn
Nurit Chinn is a playwright from London currently based in Brooklyn. Her plays have been developed at the Alliance Theatre, BAM, the Center for New Jewish Culture, the Royal Court Theatre and others. She is a 2024/25 New Jewish Culture Fellow, a 2025 Alliance/Kendeda finalist and the Playwright-in-Residence at Centro Primo Levi, where she is also under commission. Nurit is the Co-Director of Exponential Festival 2026. MFA: Brooklyn College, Playwriting.

SEARCH ENGINE by Raffi Donatich
Raffi Donatich is a writer and performer. Her feature screenplay Poetic License recently wrapped production with Maude Apatow directing; Cooper Hoffman, Andrew Barth Feldman and Leslie Mann star. She is currently staffed on LuckyChap and Fake Empire’s Sterling Point, created by Megan Park for Amazon. She is also developing a TV series entitled Sex Act with Jeremy O. Harris and Lena Dunham producing under her Good Thing Going banner. Previously, she worked on Jeremy O. Harris’ plays Slave Play (NYTW, Broadway) and Daddy (Almeida). In 2020, she was awarded Yale University’s Frederick Mortimer Clapp Fellowship for Poetry.

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SHOP THE COLLECTIONS

Explore collections of winning plays from previous years of The Concord Theatricals Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival.

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