Submission Period
Entries are accepted between March 15 and June 30, annually. Please review the guidelines before filling out and submitting your application.
Nominations are currently closed:
About the Award
SETC’s Charles M. Getchell New Play Contest is dedicated to the discovery, development and publicizing of worthy new plays and playwrights. Submissions are accepted between March 15 and June 30, annually. One winning playwright receives a $1,000 cash award and an all-expense paid trip to the annual SETC Convention, where both a critique and staged reading of the winning play are held. The winning play is also considered for online publication and a feature in Southern Theatre magazine.
Click Here to read about the history of the award in an article by Chip Egan in the Winter-Spring 1999 Southern Theatre.
Click Here to learn more about Charles M. Getchell.
2023 Winner
A Thing of Beauty by DW Gregory
Mrs. Bouffant is outraged when an anonymous nude takes first prize in the community art competition she sponsors. When she learns the artist is the mailman who is constantly losing her deliveries, she enlists her secretary to lobby the judges for a more appropriate winner, unaware that Imelda herself is the muse who inspired the work. But their joint campaign for decency runs aground when an influential New York art critic arrives in town, hell-bent on sticking a finger in the eye of the elite big city art scene by championing an unknown, working-class painter.
About the Playwright:
D.W. Gregory’s plays frequently explore political issues through a personal lens and with a comedic twist. The New York Times called her “a playwright with a talent to enlighten and provoke” for RADIUM GIRLS, which has received more than 1,500 productions throughout the U.S. and abroad and is one of the ten most produced plays in U.S. high schools. Other plays include MEMOIRS OF A FORGOTTEN MAN, which received a National New Play Network rolling world premiere (Contemporary American Theater Festival, Shadowland Stages, and New Jersey Rep); MOLUMBY’S MILLION (Iron Age Theatre), nominated for a Barrymore Award by Philadelphia Theatre Alliance; SALVATION ROAD, developed through NYU’s New Plays for Young Audiences; THE GOOD DAUGHTER and OCTOBER 1962 (New Jersey Rep). D.W. is currently developing a new musical comedy, THE YELLOW STOCKING PLAY, with composer Steven M. Alper and lyricist Sarah Knapp. More information at www.dwgregory.com.
Past Winners
Year |
Playwright |
Play Title |
| 2023 | DW Gregory | A Thing of Beauty |
| 2022 | John Mabey | A Complicated Hope |
| 2021 | Angela J. Davis | AGATHE |
| 2020 | Rachel Bykowski | 28 Light Years From Now |
| 2019 | Mark Cornell | The Other Half |
| 2018 | Sean Michael McCord | Moving |
| 2017 | W.L. Newkirk | Miss |
| 2016 | Ben Gierhart | Another Man’s Treasure |
| 2015 | Will Coleman | Helvetica |
| 2014 | Robert Plowman | The Missing Link |
| 2012 | Beth Kander | Scrambled |
| 2011 | Eddie Zipperer | Nicolas the Worm |
| 2010 | Alice Shen | Entitled |
| 2009 | Tommy Trull | Honeyboy |
| 2008 | Richard Aellen | Nobody |
| 2007 | Don LaPlant | Two Body Problems |
| 2006 | Dennis Schebetta | Obscura |
| 2005 | Scot Lahaie | Dogfall |
| 2004 | Lew Holton | Portal |
| 2003 | David Blakely | Tales of Shoogilly |
| 2002 | William Hayes | Going South with Phil and Margaret |
| 2001 | Alison Pruitt | The Trial of Susan B. Anthony |
| 2000 | Linda Nell Cooper | April Morning |
| 1999 | Steve Downs | Glossolalia |
| 1998 | Sheryle Criswell | …Where Late the Sweet Birds Sing |
| 1997 | David Davis | Five Exits |
| 1996 (Tie) | Kenneth Robins | Atomic Field |
| 1996 (Tie) | Thomas W. Stephens | Miserere, Passing Through |
| 1995 | Jason Milligan | Walking on the Moon |
| 1994 | Bob King | Dry Thunder |
| 1993 | Jett Parsley | Locked Doors and Lightning Bugs |
| 1992 | Richard Zinober | The House at the Edge of the World |
| 1991 | Adam Kraar | A Twist of Faith |
| 1990 | Andrew Young | Sanctuary |
| 1989 | Bernard Sabath | Father and Daughter |
| 1988 | Jan Henson Dow & Robert Shroeder | The Golden Dawn |
| 1987 | Eddie DeSantis | American Subway |
| 1986 | Bobbi Evors | Another Dimension |
| 1985 | Beverly Shatto | Song of the parakeet |
| 1984 | Pat Kaufman | Cookie Jar |