Overview

THE OJAI PLAYWRIGHTS CONFERENCE is a developmental program that values the reading and workshop process as an important avenue through which playwrights can more fully realize their intentions with a play. Ours is a conference centered around playwrights and their new plays. We believe the theatre can be a vital and essential forum for the exchange of new and challenging ideas about the world in which we live. We seek out plays and playwrights who share this vision.

We believe that theatre MATTERS.

We believe that theatre can CHANGE THINGS.

We believe that theatre has a responsibility to engage OUR WORLD.

We believe that theatre has a ROLE TO PLAY in the SHAPING OF SOCIETY.

The possibilities of theatre are endless.

Vital dramatic work needs to start somewhere. These plays need to begin someplace where they can be seen, heard and felt.

The Ojai Playwrights Conference was founded on the belief that gathering a community of world-class theatre artists together in a place of extraordinary beauty can lead to a collaborative process that enables playwrights to qualitatively rework and refine their dramatic vision.

We gather a diverse group of playwrights from all walks of life, from all communities, from Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winners to the most exciting, young, emerging playwrights in the country.

We do not require anything from the plays other than that they be NEW, UNPRODUCED and PASSIONATE. Seeing a play at the Ojai Conference is experiencing the dramatic as it happens, at the moment of its creation.

Twelve days: new plays, playwrights, a family of actors, directors, dramaturges, technicians, and an audience who cares about the theatre.

Collaboration, discussion, engagement, growth: these elements are at the very heart of the Ojai experience.

Each year the Conference also hosts symposia, platforms for performance and then discussion – the exchange of ideas. Conference artists engage each other and the audience about their craft, their beliefs and their new work.

Plays that started here are seen all over the country.

This Conference believes that there is a very special kind of magic at the start of a play’s journey – when artists and audience gather to support the developmental process.