The Acrosstown Repertory Theatre Presents
Gainesville Homegrown: Playwrights Workshop
Calling all aspiring playwrights! For the Acrosstown Repertory Theatre's 2026-2027 season, the Gainesville Homegrown Festival is adapting to further foster the art of playwriting within the community. This year, we will select 4-to-6 applicants to develop a short play (20-30 pages) for the festival.
Selected playwrights will be asked to participate in a series of seminars and workshops, culminating in a finalized work that will be directed, cast, and presented as a staged reading at the festival.
Festival Prizes
Board Favorite: $250 cash prize*
Audience Favorite: $100 cash prize**
APPLICANTS
Playwright Applications are due on October 4th, 2026 at 11:59pm.
To apply, please provide a sample of your writing. This could be anything! For example, it could a play in progress that you'd like to further develop for the festival. Or, it could be a completed short story or poem that has nothing to do with what you'd like to develop for the festival. It could even be an opinion piece or blog post on a topic you're passionate about! Ultimately, we want to review a piece that expresses your interests and talents as a writer of any format who would like to learn more about playwrighting.
Please also review the schedule below and ensure that you will be available for the following dates. We have limited space in the playwright cohort, so its important that our applicants can meaningfully contribute to the seminars, workshops, and festival as a whole.
SCHEDULE
October 25th (10am-12pm) will be the Initial Meeting for the selected Homegrown playwrights to discuss the structure of the festival in more detail.
November Seminars will be informal sessions to discuss the art and craft of playwriting, designed for the Homegrown applicants but open to the public as well. They will take place on:
November 8th (10am-12pm)
November 15th (10am-12pm)
November 22nd (10am-12pm)
Rough Drafts of the Homegrown plays will be due on November 29th,11:59pm.
December Workshops will center on reviewing the rough drafts of each playwright's piece. They will take place on:
December 6th (10am-12pm)
December 13th (10am-12pm)
December 20th (10am-12pm)
Final Drafts of the Homegrown plays will be due on January 23rd, 2027, 11:59pm.
From there, the piece will be passed on to a director who will prepare it for a live reading at the Homegrown 2027 Playwright Festival on March 20th, 2027. There will be a Tech/Dress Rehearsal the night before, March 19th.
* Any board member who submits a written work to the festival is prohibited from participating in the selecting and voting process.
** Audience favorite to be determined by anonymous audience vote the day of the festival.