FACT SHEET
Application, Selection, The Process
Proposals are submitted by a theater and include a writer, director, and either the draft of an
unproduced play for young and family audiences, or an idea/scenario/treatment for a play.
Proposals go through a two-part adjudication process. First of all, an outside panel reads
them; then a Kennedy Center committee reads the top proposals. Selections are made both on
the quality of the potential project as well as creating a stimulating combination of shows for
the outside audience. We cast the shows for the directors from a pool of Washington DC Equity
actors, many experienced and gifted in new play development.
The writer and director will work with the actors for five days, 3-4 hours per day. They either
rehearse mornings or afternoons, with the rest of the time for rewriting, conversations,
planning. The projects are presented as rehearsed readings for what is, in effect, a small
national conference of artistic directors, administrators, directors, playwrights, and educators
(with 80-100 attending). A 20-30 minute facilitated discussion is held following each reading.
Some semantic clarification: in the US, we refer to theater for young audiences, or TYA, as
adult actors performing for children ages pre-kindergarten through high school (age 18). New
Visions works with plays in this age range.
What’s unique about New Visions/New Voices

It’s theater-driven – this specific director writer will be doing this specific play either next
season, or the season following, so there’s a particular energy and buzz that comes from
that fact. Many other developmental workshops seem to be playwright-driven, and, in a
sense, develop plays in the ideal. New Visions/New Voices also helps develop them in
practical ways

Projects are accepted at various stages of development, ranging from a completed script
nearly ready for production to an idea for a project. During the week of rehearsals, when
we have 6-8 writer-director teams working, there are plays of varying styles at all stages of
development. This leads to a wonderful cross fertilization amongst the creative teams

The Kennedy Center’s mantra is ”process, process, process”, and we have no agenda other
than the play move forward – as defined by the director and writer.

We don’t assign a dramaturg to projects because there are existing relationships between
directors and writers, but we do have two dramaturgs who function as resources as
needed.

We’re able to tap into a large pool of ethnically diverse Washington, DC, actors.
Who has participated in New Visions/New Voices

Since its inception in 1991, the festival has assisted in the development of 66 new plays,
musicals, and operas from 45 theater companies in 25 states and two foreign countries
from 61 playwrights, 29 composers, and 62 directors.

A number of the most important American TYA plays of recent years have had part of their
development at New Visions, including Lawrence Yep’s Dragonwings, David Saar’s The
Yellow Boat, Laurie Brooks’ The Wrestling Season, James Still’s In the Suicide Mountains,
Luis Alfaro’s Black Butterfly, Jaguar Woman, Pinata Girl, and other Super Hero Girls Like
Me, Y York’s Afternoon of the Elves (recently seen at Windmill)

Other playwrights have included Jose Cruz Gonzalez, Kim Hines, Naomi Iizuka, Kevin Kling,
Mark Medoff (Tony award for Children of a Lesser God), Robert Schenkkan (Pulitzer Prize
for The Kentucky Cycle), Mac Wellman, Karen Zacarias

Theaters have included Children’s Theater Company of Minneapolis; Seattle Children’s
Theater; The Coterie Theater (Kansas City); the Alliance Theater (Atlanta); Childsplay
(Tempe, Arizona).

In 2006, the festival’s first year with international entries, we included Spellshock
(Ravel/Carl Miller from the Unicorn Theatre in London and Rosalba Clemente’s Grail from
Windmill Performing Arts in Adelaide, Australia
Selected quotes from past participants
 I commend NV/NV to all as a model of its kind in arts development. It's hard to see how it
could be done better. In terms of moving Theatre for Young Audiences and Families
forward it was exemplary. The international element is of its time, as our movement
continues to become a global force.
- Tony Graham, Artistic Director, Unicorn Theatre, London.

“New Visions/New Voices is a clear example of the world’s best practice”
– Tony Mack, Vice President, ASSITEJ, the international association of theaters for children
and young people.

[New Visions/New Voices] will continue to impact on theater for a long time and is a
significant and important initiative.
- Cate Fowler, Windmill Performing Arts

. . . a place of convergence where . . . artists are fully supported, and their work is
introduced before a national body of theatre for young audience professionals. New
Visions/New Voices is one of our nation’s treasures.
- Jose Cruz Gonzalez, Playwright

One of the key elements is doing this concentrated work in the company of one’s highly
respected peers - knowing they are . . . just two doors down. . . The level of conversation
. . . with artistic leaders from across the field is the highest it ever is.
- Mark Lutwak, Artistic Director, Honolulu Theatre for Youth

There is no agenda except to help form and experiment with the given piece - and all this
. . . in an atmosphere charged by all the other creative . . . teams. New Visions raises the
bar for theater for young audiences, for when an institution as important as the Kennedy
Center feels the work is vital, we as artists bring our best to the table.
- Deborah Wicks La Puma, Composer

An esteemed and enriching opportunity to collaborate with the best
- Lisa Mulcahy in Theater Festivals - Best Worldwide Venues for New Works

The play I brought to New Visions/New Voices was already walking, but had a tendency to
babble incoherently. By the time we left, play and playwright were both very focused and
telling a story listeners could follow. I don’t know how you do it, but your mix is magic,
and my honor to be included profound.
- Y York, Playwright

New Visions/New Voices has nurtured some of the most important new plays in the
American Theater for Young Audiences repertoire, [with] many . . . produced all over the
country. What's even more significant. . . is the profound impact that NV/NV has had on
the… development of the national field.
- Scot Copeland, Artistic Director, Nashville Children’s Theatre

New Visions/New Voices created a community of artists committed to a bold and capacious
vision of what theatre for young audiences can be. I felt very privileged to be a part of
that community.
- Naomi Iizuka, Playwright

New Visions/New Voices turned my head around about what is possible in the world of
theatre for young audiences. A couple of seasons around the Kennedy Center’s
extraordinary congregation of artists and TYA devotees brought this whole field from the
periphery of my vision to the center: here’s a place where imagination and the breadth of
possibility still reign.
- Todd London, Artistic Director, New Dramatists, New York