We don't just produce plays, we develop new works!

The PIPS Program is Actors Theatre’s new play development lab. Through year-round readings, residencies, and workshops, we offer playwrights support tailored to their artistic process and introduce them to our Actors Theatre community of artists and audiences.     

As part of our mission, we seek out a diverse array of voices creating innovative new work. Through cultivating these essential relationships, our goal is to make Central Arkansas a destination place for new plays and give our audiences first access to the most exciting new theater.   

Our goal is three-fold:  

1. To celebrate and cultivate new plays by emerging local and regional playwrights.  
2. To incubate professional artistic talent in the Central Arkansas region.  
3. To educate the public on the process of taking new plays from page to stage. 

Part of Actors Theatre’s mission is to produce boundary-breaking theatre and to create and support original work by local writers and creatives.  

Our PIPS program is based on key principles of:  

• focusing on artists;  
• valuing diversity of approach, aesthetics, and perspective; and  
• balancing impact with investment.  

We envision ATLR as a nationally recognized hub for the development of new theatre that is extraordinary, edgy, and relevant. We hope to be a model for nurturing and incubating local talent in similar sized markets, the most regarded cultivator of new theatre for Central Arkansas audiences, a laboratory for promising research and investigation, and a launchpad for nationally significant new plays.  

Our approach is to combine:  

• efficient programs that can stretch our limited resources to include many artists and  
• highly customizable approaches that directly serve specific needs of projects with extraordinary potential. 

We also aim to utilize the PIPS program to bring new work to audiences in Central Arkansas, and to allow them the opportunity to engage constructively and thoughtfully in the process of helping to develop new plays. 

PIPS offers playwrights an opportunity to develop and hone their plays in an artistically rich, focused collaborative environment that includes both a public reading and the active mentorship of ATLR’s creative team. 

Because we offer highly customizable approaches that directly serve specific needs of each project and playwright, there is no “one size fits all” approach. But, generally you can expect the PIPS program to include:

• Play development meetings with ATLR leadership, directors, other writers, and guest artists 
• Public and private readings and workshops 
• At least two public play readings 
• At least one script-in-hand staged reading 
• One fully produced production as part of our main stage season 
• Program length varies with how developed the scripts chosen already are, but generally will be over the course of 2 seasons 

Playwrights also have the opportunity to receive audience feedback through guided post-show discussions, designed to center the playwright’s questions and needs.  

PIPS was created by Actors Theatre of Little Rock to honor and encourage emerging playwrights of the American Theatre, as well as develop the next generation of regional artists. Actors Theatre envisions the PIPS program as a springboard to catapult new plays to the national stage.

The program is intentionally intimate, only one to three playwrights are accepted into the program every year, allowing for an intensive individualized approach, as well as the flexibility to let writers shape the program to meet their own creative goals and ambitions. 

Actors Theatre currently accepts submissions of full-length scripts, short one-acts, and 10-minute plays.

In order to best serve the theatre’s season planning needs and support Central Arkansas’ thriving artistic community, Actors Theatre will accept queries from local writers (based in the greater Central Arkansas area) for select dates during the summer. For the 2024 submission cycle, submissions are open August 16th - September 20th. This is the best way to have your materials considered for our reading series, PIPS program, and other developmental opportunities that arise. Interested playwrights should submit the following materials:

• Cover letter
• Resume
• Contact information for at least one professional reference
• A synopsis of the play
• A character breakdown
• A 10-page dialogue sample
• Audio for musicals
• A brief description of the play’s developmental and production history

Due to limited staff resources, scripts from beyond the Central Arkansas region (50 miles or more), or scripts submitted outside the window noted above, will not be read. 

Please send to mark@actorstheatrelr.org with the subject “PIPS” for consideration.

We are particularly interested in stories that call out for the stage; plays possessing a fresh use of language or form; compelling contemporary stories that speak to our community; and plays by under-represented voices (e.g., women, writers of color, trans/non-binary writers, writers with disabilities). 

We look for works that are issue-oriented and socially significant. We are interested in plays with contemporary themes that speak to diverse audiences, whose subject matter engages and entertains on both an intellectual and emotional level. 

We are always seeking unproduced work, and will consider full-length original plays, musicals, solo plays, short one-acts, adaptations, and children’s plays. Be sure to check out our mission and vision statements before submitting. The best way to get a sense of what works we look for is by reading up on our production history.