Emerging Artists Theatre Now Accepting Submissions for their Summer Spark Theatre Festival NYC, Running September 9 -29, 2024 at the Chain Theater in midtown Manhattan

Application deadline is June 1, 2024

Emerging Artists Theatre (EAT) is seeking submissions for their Summer Spark Theatre Festival NYC. The festival is scheduled to run from September 9th through September 29th, 2024, at the Chain Theater, 312 W. 36th Street, in New York City.

Submissions of short plays, musicals, solo performances, dance, cabaret, sketch comedy, jazz, burlesque, monologues, storytelling, and subway musicians/acts are now being accepted. If you have an artistic discipline that isn’t mentioned or is “out of the box,” please feel free to submit. 

Spark Theatre Festival NYC showcases polished works-in-progress. Many of the pieces that are showcased at the festival are being presented in front of an audience for the first time. Each participant is given the option of doing a talkback following their performance, where they may ask the audience for feedback on their work.

Artists showcase their works-in-progress, whether as a staged reading or an off-book presentation. Shows run nightly Monday through Friday at 7 pm, Saturdays and Sundays at 2pm, 5 pm, and 7 pm. Presentation slots are 60 minutes. If you are submitting a short piece, you will be paired with another play or dance piece to create a 60-minute show slot. Submissions must be a minimum of 5 minutes for dance pieces and monologues. Productions may not be performed 3 months prior to or a month after the Spark Theatre Festival.

To submit a new work, please visit https://emergingartiststheatre.org/spark

The deadline for submissions is midnight (EST) June 1st, 2024. Participants will be notified on a rolling basis starting in mid-June. There are no submission or festival fees, and participants receive a 50/50 box-office split when the required audience guarantee of 1 ticket per minute of performance is met. Past artists who have packed the house have made between $300 to $900 for 30 minutes to an hour presentation. All participants must be fully vaccinated. 

Application and submission guidelines are available at https://emergingartiststheatre.org/submissions

Spark Theatre Festival NYC (formerly known as the New Work Series) is a bi-annual three-week developmental series that provides artists of different disciplines the opportunity to present one night of a "work in progress" with audience feedback. Since its inception in 2006, successful FringeNYC, NYMF, Edinburgh Fringe, and Off-Broadway shows have been born out of this series. In the Fall of 2023, EAT produced three Off-Broadway World Premieres that were previously showcased at Spark Theatre Festival NYC, including Anne Being Frank by Ron Elisha, Doris Day: My Secret Love by Paul Adams, and Sex Work/Sex Play by Caytha Jentis.

More information and the application can be found at www.emergingartiststheatre.org