The Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition is a one-of-a-kind national competition that transitions student playwrights to the world of professional theatre.

The Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition solicits plays from the leading MFA graduate programs in the United States and then conducts a rigorous selection process to find four finalists and one winning play. The winner receives a full production as part of the Alliance Theatre regular season. The winner and four finalists also receive development opportunities for their works including staged readings with industry professionals in Washington, D.C. and Atlanta. A one-of-a-kind opportunity for emerging playwrights, the Competition transitions student playwrights to the world of professional theatre.

Past winners have become some of today’s most exciting writers and playwrights and include Academy Award winner Tarell Alvin McCraney, whose play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue inspired the 2016 Academy Award-winning film for Best Picture, Moonlight; Kenneth Lin, a writer for the Netflix hit series “House of Cards,” Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist Meg Miroshnik (The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls), Mike Lew (Tiger Style!), 2018 winner of the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for an Emerging American Playwright, and Jiréh Breon Holder, whose competition-winning play Too Heavy For Your Pocket opened off-Broadway in 2017.

The program is led by Director of New Work, Amanda Watkins. Email Amanda at amanda.watkins@alliancetheatre.org for more information.

Winners and Finalists