Heartland's ART GALLERY 10-Minute Play Competition Open for Entries Till February 1

If you're still putting the finishing touches on your little work of art -- an ART GALLERY 10-minute play -- you have till February 1 to share it with Heartland Theatre.

Heartland's annual 10-minute play competition is always a popular part of its season, with last year's CLASS REUNION plays making a strong impression. If you'd like to see your work as part of this summer's 15th annual 10-Minute Play Festival, you have three weeks left to polish it up and get it in under the wire. Or under the sketch, painting, sculpture, textile... Or whatever other kind of art you've chosen to write about.

Robert Caney, Stage Set with Paintings and Statues

Here's how Heartland's website describes what they're looking for:

"Art has been used as a canvas to explore issues of creativity, culture, censorship, passion, talent, ownership, class, race, privilege and aspiration, with a variety of theatrical imaginations taking it as a jumping-off point.

"And it isn’t just one kind of drama… Art as a weapon, art as a scam, a political football, a gift or a forgery, tortured artists trying to create and unsure whether what they’re doing will matter, art as something reserved for the upper classes, some people’s art valued more than others because of the color of their skin… Whether you choose to write about one of those ideas or something completely different, there is fertile ground in an art gallery."

They're asking you to keep in mind that the theater will have to recreate your vision on stage, so what you want represented in front of an audience needs to be within the realm of the possible. Feel free to create any kind of theatrical art that can be accomplished at Heartland with two, three or four actors in about ten minutes.

Edouard Vuillard, The Conversation

For more information, click here. The official rules for the competition are here, with the entry form about 2/3 down the Rules page. Playwrights need to fill out and submit the entry form, attaching their plays right to that form. Questions should be directed to: playfest@heartlandtheatre.org

Paul Gaugin, Haystacks in Brittany

The artwork displayed here is from the National Gallery of Art's open access collection.