Send in Submissions for Babes With Blades Sword & Pen 2017-18

Babes With Blades Theatre Company (BWBTC) announces the
seventh round of Joining Sword & Pen, the international playwriting competition dedicated to expanding the canon of quality scripts featuring fighting roles for women, with a $1,000 prize.

Founded in 2005, Joining Sword & Pen asks writers to take inspiration from a work of visual art, using it as the basis for a new play. Since its inception, the competition has been sponsored by Fight Master David Woolley, Society of American Fight Directors.

All submissions must be new, original works, inspired by the artwork that is the focus of the contest. The moment depicted in the inspirational image must be incorporated into the play. Submissions must be received by BWBTC by March 9, 2017.

As they write on their website, "Playwrights of all genders and plays of all genres are welcome. Male characters are great, so long as they don't overshadow/outnumber the female characters. Put another way: if your script doesn't pass the�Bechdel Test, it's unlikely to be a good fit for us."

They're looking for the inclusion of fight scenes in the scripts, as long as they serve the story and characters, and want finished scripts, either full-length or one acts, and stage their shows in small, black box theaters on limited budgets.

The winner will receive the Margaret W. Martin Award: the play will undergo development via BWBTC's Fighting Words program prior to premiering as part of BWBTC's 2018-19 season, and the playwright will receive a $1,000 cash prize.

Babes With Blades Theatre Company uses stage combat to place women and their stories center stage. Through performance, script development, training, and outreach, our ensemble creates theatre that explores the wide range of the human experience, and cultivates broader perspectives in
the arts community and in society as a whole.

Joining Sword & Pen asks writers to take inspiration from a work of visual art, using it as the basis for a new play that both features complex roles for women, and explores staged violence as a storytelling tool. Six Joining Sword & Pen winners have been produced by BWBTC to date, most recently "The Promise Of A Rose Garden" by Dustin Spence.

The competition is sponsored by David Woolley, a Fight Master with the Society of American Fight Directors, a Senior Lecturer/Combat Coordinator at Columbia College Chicago. Woolley began his sponsorship of the Margaret W. Martin Award in 2007; prior to that he sponsored the Ballantyne Award. He directed and choreographed winners "An Affair Of Honor (Satisfaction)" (2006) and "Los Desaparecidos" (2008), and choreographed "A Gulag Mouse" (2010).