For Actors & Playwrights

TITLE WAVE 2024

New Works Festival 2024 Open Submissions announcement

Bay Street Theater will open the submission period for our New Works Festival on October 1, 2023.

We will be accepting new full-length plays for our Festival to take place in May 2024, exact dates TBD.

Bay Street is looking for plays that represent a broad array of voices, viewpoints, cultures, and styles. Writers of all backgrounds are strongly encouraged to submit. We are looking for pieces that have had re-writes and development already, perhaps now in their third or fourth draft, and are at a stage where the addition of in-person creatives can be used to their full value.

We offer an opportunity to work with directors and actors on your play, in-person. Selected plays will be provided with dramaturgical notes from our artistic leadership, rehearsal time in NYC, and a public presentation in Sag Harbor, NY, with an audience feedback session, over the course of several days.

We are not able to offer transportation to or housing in NYC at this time, though we will transport participants from NYC to Sag Harbor for the day of presentations.

A full-length play is a single work that constitutes a stand-alone evening of theatre. We are not currently looking for musicals or plays for young audiences. We are also looking for plays that can be performed with no more than six actors.

SUBMISSIONS OPEN ON October 1, 2023.

Submissions will remain open through October 31, 2023 or when we reach 300 submissions, whichever comes first.

Questions may be directed to the Literary Manager, Hope Villanueva, at LitManager@BayStreet.org.

Commitment to Anti-Racism

We are resolved to explicitly and publicly affirm our identity as an anti-racist theater and cultural arts center.

We are resolved that our anti-racism commitment be reflected in the life and culture of the arts, our actions, programs, and educational outreach as we continue to learn about racism. 

We acknowledge that racism can be unconscious or unintentional, and that growing awareness of our personal biases is a life-long process. As an organization committed to anti-racism, we vow to purposefully identify, discuss, and challenge issues of race and color, and the impacts they have on our theater, its governance, and its people. We commit to challenging ourselves to understand and correct any inequities that may occur, and thereby gain a better understanding of ourselves during this purposeful process.

We resolve to develop and implement strategies that dismantle racism within all aspects of our organization, the performing arts, education, and our community. We firmly believe in the fruits of that commitment: A Bay Street Theatre where all people and perspectives are safe, valued, and heard.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policy

Bay Street Theater (BST) is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion. We embrace these pillars of excellence as crucial to building communities where everyone feels a healthy sense of belonging. Bay Street is committed to honoring, nurturing, and advancing such a community through the performing arts. Bay Street will promote diversity, equity and inclusion, and equal opportunity in all aspects of its programming, services, and organization. Inclusion means a commitment to making all members of the community feel welcome and comfortable at Bay Street Theater, as well as creating an environment where everyone’s ideas and viewpoints are heard and valued.

Bay Street believes that its core values are strengthened when all members have a voice and are encouraged to contribute. Diversity, equity and inclusion are an active process that requires continuous commitment to promote healthy people, healthy communities and the overall success of present and future generations.

Our values are realized through or by:

• Fostering a culture of open-mindedness, compassion, and inclusiveness among individuals and groups.
• Actively building a community whose members have diverse cultures, backgrounds, and life experiences.
• Providing effective leadership in the development, coordination, implementation and assessment of a comprehensive array of programs and services to promote diversity and understanding of differences.
• Creating and maintaining opportunities for engagement, education, and discourse related to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Identifying competencies that are essential to creating environments enriched with diverse views and people.
• Providing educational opportunities toward the development of socially responsible leaders who are willing to engage in the discourse and decision-making that can lead to transformational change toward learning, achievement, healthy people and healthy communities.
• Honoring freedom of expression, ideals of citizenry, and civility of discourse as fundamental to personal, professional, and organizational growth.
• Challenging and dismantling systemic oppression.
• Promoting social justice and diversity in all BST activities addressing issues related, but not limited to, race, ethnicity, culture, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, ability, national origin, veteran status, social economic class, religion, and professional status; and coordinate educational resources and opportunities for its’ members.
• Respecting and valuing all dimensions of diversity in hiring, promotion, job assignment, development opportunity, and compensation decisions and actions.

Partner Organizations

The following organizations have partnered in many ways with Bay Street Theater. For some without brick and mortar, Bay Street has provided a home for their creative work. For others, Bay Street’s partnership created joint programming opportunities for our diverse audiences. Together, Bay Street and these organizations have worked together to create a more diverse and inclusive community. This remains as one of the key pillars of Bay Street’s mission and is reviewed continuously in order to do better each year.