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Monday, February 16, 2015

16th Annual Midtown International Theater Festival

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MITF Call for Scripts

Deadline February 26, 2015

The Midtown International Theatre Festival (MITF) is gathering projects for its sixteenth season (production dates: July 13 - August 9, 2015). (The last week is exclusively for the Commercial Division.)

If you have a project you think might be worth producing in the MITF, now's the time to send it in! The rules are easy-peasy.

There's no application fee. 

If your project is accepted, there's a participation fee of $600 ($999 for Equity showcases). This earns you a place in the Festival, with many FREE perks (see below). If you wish to participate in revenue from your show, you may pay a Theatre Usage Fee that entitles you to a share of the gross.

In exchange for your participation fee, the Festival offers a unique array of benefits unmatched by any other theatre festival in NYC:

• Twenty hours FREE rehearsal time, plus severely discounted additional time
• FREE showcase insurance
• FREE external storage (availability permitting)
• FREE marketing consultation, with E-mail followup
• No side letter with Equity, so no hidden costs
• COMPS for all participants to each others' shows
• Five production photos taken by our publicity staff

Our regular lineup of full-lengths will be supplemented by our Commercial Division, to be held at an appropriately splendid venue (Off-Broadway style, at least). This division is for shows with commercial ambitions. Shows can have sets; they get more time to set up and strike; they get unlimited extra rehearsal time during the run to fix problems; and the Festival will stay open an extra week just for them.

In addition to our traditional festival of full-lengths, we are also a growing festival of one-acts, known as the MITF Short Subjects, curated in person by Festival executive producer John Chatterton. Short Subjects must be 60 minutes or less and are performed in the same spaces as the full-lengths. Short subjects don't pay an application fee, and the participation fee is only $100. They get most of the same perks as full-lengths, except for free rehearsal time (they can pay for unlimited discounted time) and marketing consultation. Short Subjects are also limited to non-union productions. They receive half the profits from their performances. To develop innovative theatre, the MITF is devoted to keeping costs for participants down, starting with such benefits as 20 hours’ FREE rehearsal space for full-length shows, FREE storage, FREE showcase insurance, and more.

In addition to our regular performances, last year we included performances of the Short Play Lab, normally done during the regular theatre season only. The Short Play Lab comprises 2 programs of 10-minute (or less) plays, each program performed twice in one weekend.

Finally, last year we also fielded a cabaret series. We’ll be looking for more cabaret acts this season.

We require scripts to be E-mailed to us in Word or PDF format, with ancillary materials (like music demos) E-mailed in appropriate file formats. You may snail-mail us DVDs where appropriate.

Please check out the rest of our Web site for more details, contained in the Festival Manual, online application forms, and other pages dedicated to special subjects. The MITF is the third-biggest theatre festival in New York City. It also has the biggest ratio of paid staff to participants. It's a comfortable place to preview your work, whether you're new to producing or have commercial ambitions. (Last year 4 MITF alumni shows were playing Off-Broadway simultaneously!) And the Midtown location can't be beat for access to industry and general theatregoers!

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