The Oliver
Kelly Award
A prize for scripts that jump off the page. From solo shows to short plays -- we read everything and pull no punches.
$20 awarded to winning playwrights
Winners receive $20 via Venmo or PayPal. We accept scripts on a rolling basis -- your play may win months after submission. Winning work is permanently featured in the archive.
Curated, not crowdsourced
Every script is read and evaluated by hand. We are not producing these plays -- we are spotlighting them. Think of it as a living database of work that actually deserves to be seen.
Playwrights retain full rights
Submitting your work does not transfer any rights. Your script belongs entirely to you. We celebrate it -- you own it.
In Tsarist Russia, Anna Vronsky is a veterinarian who saves her teal dress for special occasions, which usually means celebrating other people. Tonight it's a dinner for her fiancé's father, who just won a government award. But while she's getting ready, she finds a vial of poison in her teenage brother's bag, meant for the secret police who took their parents away. She takes it from him and tucks it into her dress, and it's still there when she leaves for the party. Between a future mother-in-law who says she can smell Anna's poverty from a kilometer away, a fiancé who isn't sure their engagement is worth the conflict, and a Minister of the Interior who recites his own poetry and calls himself a coward, Anna has to decide what to do with the poison. A darkly funny and devastating play about privilege, revolution, and the cost of fighting for someone when no one will fight for you.
Read It Here"The goal is simple: take the time that most institutions won't. Read carefully. Choose boldly. Make excellent theatrical writing impossible to ignore."
- 01 Scripts are accepted on a rolling basis. There are no deadlines.
- 02 If your play has not won within six months of submission, you are welcome to submit a new script.
- 03 Winning playwrights must take one month off before submitting again.
- 04 All forms are welcome: solo shows, 10-minute plays, one-acts, full-lengths. Musicals are not accepted.
- 05 The submission fee is $10, paid by credit card at time of submission.
- 06 Playwrights retain full rights to their work at all times.