The next Shakespeare? Parker County theater presents quarantine playwriting contest

The show must go on.

And if it can’t be performed on stage at the moment, thanks to COVID-19, great works can still be created through talented writing.

So, while Theatre Off The Square in Weatherford may be dark at the moment, the nonprofit group is planning for the future in a world full of inspiration.

TOTS is holding an original one-act playwriting contest, using the theme “quarantine.” Each script must have a running time of 40-45 minutes.

“In the social media committee, they discussed the fact that Shakespeare reportedly wrote ‘Macbeth’ and ‘King Lear’ while in quarantine during the plague, and one of the committee members suggested that we hold a contest to write a play while we were under quarantine,” TOTS board member Jennifer Brown said. “The play selection committee, at the same time, had discussed the idea of hosting a new works festival, so it felt natural to combine the two ideas to have the playwriting contest feed into the festival.”

Submissions are due July 31. Finalists will be selected and announced Aug. 15, and their finished pieces will be performed as part of a New Works Festival in 2021.

“We originally discussed allowing monologues, single scenes, or full-length plays as well, but decided that a one-act play was most fitting for time, and that it would be best to limit it to one category for our first contest,” said Kaleigh Parker with the social media committee. “We also decided that one-act plays, as opposed to full-length plays, would allow for more entries to be given time at the New Works Festival.”

Entrants can come from anywhere and do not have to live in Weatherford or Parker County.

“We hope to see a variety of takes on the theme of quarantine and would love to see work of all different kinds, from comedic to dramatic,” said Jaclyn Jones Justice, who represents the play selection committee. “Everyone’s experience dealing with the quarantine has been so different, that it’ll be interesting to see how everyone deals with the theme.”