The Regulars
The Regulars

The Secret Lives of Coats by Stephanie Fleischmann.

Red Eye Theater, 2014. Photo by Theo Goodell.

The Playwrights’ Center’s Regulars program partners with 100 theaters around the country to bring them to the Center to spend time with playwrights and co-develop new plays, with a keen eye towards production. In fact, 70% of these plays have gone on to full production within 2 years (rather than the average 7-year timeframe for most plays to see production).

Theater partnerships

The Playwrights’ Center works with several theaters each year to co-develop work for their stages. Some recent partnerships include:

  • Denver Center Theatre Company: The Great Leap by Lauren Yee
  • Artists Repertory Theatre: The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse
  • The Wilma Theater: Dionysus Was Such a Nice Man by Kate Tarker
  • Theatre Novi Most: Dancing on the Edge by Adam Kraar
  • Raven Theater: The Gentleman Caller by Philip Dawkins
  • Soho Rep: Duat by Daniel Alexander Jones
  • Red Eye Theater: Early Morning Song by Rachel Jendrzejewski
  • Olney Theatre Center: Fickle: A Fancy French Farce by Meg Miroshnik
  • Greenhouse Theater Center/Sideshow Theatre Company: The Happiest Place on Earth by Philip Dawkins

as well as projects with Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Public Theater (NY), Goodman Theatre (Chicago, IL), Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Guthrie Theater, Tectonic Theater Project, Berkeley Rep, South Florida Theatre League, Theater Mu, The Walker Art Center and Elevator Repair Service, Mixed Blood Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Ten Thousand Things Theater, Marin Theatre Company, and others.

The Playwrights’ Center has been absolutely invaluable in their support of Kira Obolensky’s work at Ten Thousand Things. Kira has written five plays for us, the last three at breakneck speed, and they simply could not have burst into the beautiful, full lives they have lived without this deep and fruitful artistic partnership.
—Michelle Hensley, Artistic Director, Ten Thousand Things Theater

Visiting Artistic Leaders

The Visiting Artistic Leaders program serves as a catalyst for creating relationships between playwrights and producers. Each year we bring 10-15 artistic leaders from theaters around the country to connect with our writers and hear their work in the context of a staged reading with some design elements.

The hours I was able to spend with the playwright primed me for the wonderfully executed reading of a play I have now fallen in love with. However the most inventive element of this experience was to have a designer be part of the process and to have her first draft ideas displayed. dance of the holy ghosts is not an easy play to visualize and this aid instantly allowed many questions to be answered.
—Kwame Kwei-Armah, Artistic Director, Center Stage

Community partnerships

The Center collaborates with local community organizations such as Jazz88 KBEM and Veterans for the Arts to develop theater that enriches their programming. Recent collaborations include:

  • Jazz88 KBEM’s “Jazz Noir” radio drama series
  • City of Minneapolis to commission a playwright to write a commemorative play for the I-35W bridge collapse

For more information on partnering with the Playwrights’ Center, contact Associate Artistic Director Hayley Finn at hayleyf@pwcenter.org or (612) 332-7481 x119.

Map of Playwrights’ Center-developed plays in production

Explore this Google map showing PWC-developed plays on stage around the world, or view the PDF versions: 2018-19 season (PDF), 2017-18 season (PDF), 2016-17 season (PDF), 2015-16 season (PDF). 

The Regulars