THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST IN SUBMITTING YOUR WORK TO OPC.
OPC’S APPLICATION WINDOW FOR 2026 WILL BE OPEN FROM
SEPTEMBER 19 - SEPTEMBER 26, 2025.
The 29th Annual Ojai Playwrights Summer Conference & New Works Festival will take place July 19-August 2, 2026. Playwrights will spend the first week in community with other writers, directors, and dramaturgs, reading and discussing the plays and a second week in workshop (with actors) to develop their new plays, culminating in a public performance of their work during the Festival Weekend. All participating playwrights are expected to attend and be a part of the artist community for the entire period.
As part of our commitment to making OPC’s new play development programs more accessible, we are thrilled to share that this will again be an open submission process. OPC continues to strengthen our commitment to helping new plays move from page to stage by limiting the barriers to consideration that emerging playwrights face. In reading more broadly, we hope to widen our knowledge about who is writing today, and to share more works with the field.
WHAT PLAY SHOULD I SEND
Writers should send the play they are most excited about working on, and the most excited to learn from. There is no monolith for “an ideal OPC play” – in content, form or style. To that end: the staff and selection committee are intentionally composed of working artists who approach new play development from a wide range of perspectives and lived experiences.
THE PROCESS
Five plays will be selected as Workshop Writers for the Conference and Festival, which includes the Week One Conference and a workshop/public reading in Week Two. Three plays will be selected for our Writer In Residence opportunity which has the same experience for week one. Week Two will give playwrights writing time with dramaturgical support, along with participating in a Playwrights Panel and an opportunity to share an excerpt of the play with the public.
The Workshop Writer opportunity is a best fit for scripts that are a step or two away from production ready (i.e. multiple drafts have been completed, there’s a few more questions to answer, etc) and could make good use of time in conversation during the Conference (Week One) and a rehearsal week with a large public reading during the Festival (Week Two). Best play matches for Writers in Residence would be scripts in an earlier draft, where community and individualized dramaturgical support would be useful, with time and space to get to a draft you’re ready to send out/share with the world.
APPLICATION GUIDELINES:
Applications are open to all playwrights over the age of 18 who reside and have the legal right to work in the United States.
OPC only accepts full-length plays (60+ minute running time) that have not yet had a full professional production. We are not currently accepting musicals for this Conference.
OPC will accept only one play by each playwright for consideration. Plays that have been submitted to OPC in previous years will not be accepted.
OPC will only accept for consideration plays submitted directly by the playwrights themselves - not as a nomination/recommendation from agent or other theater representatives or recommenders.
OPC’s Application and Selection process is curated in order to continue centering equitable access, transparency for applicants, and our capacity to thoughtfully consider the applications that come in. Please take time to read carefully below.
The application window will be open from September 19 - 26, 2025.
The application form will be available on September 19, 2025, at 9 am PT on this webpage and will close on September 26 at 11:59 pm PT. Please prepare a 10-page PDF sample of your script, as well as the full PDF script for our review. Please name your files in the following manner:
The 10-page sample should be named:
[YourLastName], [YourFirstName] 10-Page Selection, [TitleofPlay], [DateofDraft], OPC2026
The full draft should be named:
[YourLastName], [YourFirstName] [TitleofPlay], [DateofDraft], OPC2026
(Example: Parks, Suzan-Lori, THE AMERICA PLAY, 6.20.2023, OPC2026)
We will narrow down the submissions based on the 10-page sample to a 2nd Round of approximately 200 plays. We will then read the full play from this 2nd Round. Applicants will be notified if they’ve been selected for this round by the end of January 2026.
Finalists will be notified of their selection status by the end of April 2026.
Application Requirements:
1. Full length play as a PDF
2. 10 page sample from the same play submitted as a separate PDF (can be from anywhere in the play, but do add a sentence to set up a scene if you chose from somewhere that isn’t the beginning). Your title and character pages do not count towards your sample limit.
3. Tell us about your play in 250 words or less. (We find a brief synopsis to be helpful, but you can also add in any information you think would help orient a reader when reading a sample from your play).
4. Where in the development process do you feel this play is in at this moment? What would success look like for your play during this Conference? (250 words or less)
5. Your cast size
Please address any questions to [email protected] and we will get back to you as soon as we’re able.
The application form will be submitted through our online portal, which will be live on this site on September 19.
APPLY HERE STARTING SEPTEMBER 19, 2025.
About the Summer Conference & Festival:
Founded in 1997, Ojai Playwrights Conference is one of America’s preeminent play development programs. Held annually in California’s Ojai Valley, our two week Summer Conference & New Works Festival brings together a creative community of playwrights and theater artists dedicated to mutually supportive inquiry, exploration, and experimentation.
In the first week, participating playwrights, directors, dramaturgs and OPC artistic staff gather to read and discuss the plays, and build a supportive and responsive community for the work and one another. In the second week, playwrights further develop their plays with a company of professional actors. The Conference culminates with our New Works Festival, a weekend of public workshop readings, discussions and community events.
Ojai Playwrights Conference is unique in its process of developing new plays for the American theater by offering a safe, productive, rigorous haven for playwrights and plays that are challenging, and to investigate and reimagine the values, beliefs and discourses that are fundamental to the ongoing experiment that is the United States of America.
We are housed in the generous community of Ojai. Artists stay in Ojai families' homes for both weeks, week one events are conducted at a family's residence, and week two is conducted at a school. We collaborate with a local education program, and all artists engage with young artists as part of an ongoing effort to learn from each other. Meals are provided, and seen as an opportunity to be in community.
Week One: Summer Conference
OPC staff and resident playwrights, directors, and dramaturgs gather to read the plays out loud and offer feedback as a collective. Playwrights who have curiosity about process, generosity of spirit, and a genuine interest in community-building are ideal participants in the Conference portion of the residency.
Week Two: New Works Festival
We welcome actors to our collective and tuck into rehearsal rooms to prepare for public readings, which land on the Festival weekend. Since our rehearsal time is limited and our readings are open to the public, we are looking for plays that are in later stages of development. The ideal play is one that is one step or two away from production ready and could make good use of time in a room for a week and a public reading.