08/28/2025
It's that time of year! The 2026 competition is now open, and entries are due by November 2nd, 2025. Southerners, send us our one-acts!
Jax State Southern Playwrights Competition
The Competition
The Jax State Southern Playwrights Competition seeks to identify and encourage the best of Southern play writing.
The Award
An annual award of $1,000 will be presented to the first-prize winner, and the play will receive a reading as part of Jacksonville State University’s Kaleidoscope Festival of the Arts. The Jax State Southern Playwrights Competition reserves the right to use the name of the play and the author's name in all publicity and promotions.
In the event of any subsequent production or publication of the winning manuscript (or versions thereof), and as one of the stipulations of the award, the author agrees to indicate in a footnote or in the playbill that the script was named winner of the Jax State Southern Playwrights Competition for 2026, and, if applicable, that the play was produced as a public reading at Jacksonville State University.
The Rules
Playwrights must be native to or a resident of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, or West Virginia.
Plays must engage with the Southern experience, broadly conceived and conceptualized.
Entries must be original one-act plays. No musicals or adaptations will be accepted. Run time should not exceed 45 minutes.
The playwright may submit only one play.
Playwrights may re-submit non-winning plays from previous years.
All entries must be typed and submitted as Microsoft Word or PDF documents.
All entries must include a cover page with play title, playwright’s name, contact information for playwright (email address, physical address, phone number), residential connection to the south (current or former resident, plus state), and one-paragraph synopsis of script.
Legal clearance of all materials not in the public domain will be the responsibility of the playwright.
Submission is restricted to plays that have not had previous Equity productions. Plays which have had workshops, readings, or showcase productions are eligible.
The Jax State Southern Playwrights Competition reserves the right to accept or reject any play submitted.
SPC reserves the right to declare no winner.
Decisions of the judges are final.
Entries must be received no later than November 2, 2025.
The winning playwright may be required to come to the reading of the one-act at the Kaleidoscope Festival of the Arts (date TBD, likely February or March 2026).
Staff is unable to receive or acknowledge the entry.
In the event that, for any reason, the winning script cannot be read at the Kaleidoscope Festival of the Arts, SPC shall only be held responsible for the playwright's award of $1,000.
Send Entry Form with play submission to:
Dr. Marija Reiff
[email protected]
Department of English
Jacksonville State University
700 Pelham Road North
Jacksonville, Alabama 36265-1602
For questions, contact [email protected]
Digital submissions are preferred
An annual award of $1,000 will be presented to the first-prize winner, and the play will receive a reading as part of Jacksonville State University’s Kaleidoscope Festival of the Arts. The Jax State Southern Playwrights Competition reserves the right to use the name of the play and the author's ...
