THE PLOT

The Upstart Crow Project trades on the name recognition of Shakespeare’s work, along with the new-audience attractant of contemporary work by female writers. As such, the resultant plays may be matched to contemporary theaters, Shakespeare theaters - or both. In many cases, as the Upstart Crow play will be a significant departure from the Shakespeare, repertory performances of the new work juxtaposed with the original will be possible. The project is ripe for community development work by theaters on the topics of adaptation and Shakespeare study.

Through Upstart Crow fundraising of specific grants, corporate sponsorship, and individual donors, equal commissioning funds will be made available to each of the 37 playwrights.

In addition to the 37 commissioned adaptations, there will be a contest component to The Upstart Crow project , in which undergraduate and graduate playwriting programs around the country will each nominate a promising female writer to create a 10-minute riff on a Shakespeare text. The 10-minute plays will eventually comprise an evening-long performance.

As well, there will be Upstart Crow gatherings throughout the process, for the purpose of brainstorming, Shakespeare study, and community-building.

The project will operate from an anchor, or series of anchor theaters, and will ultimately be sponsored collaboratively by 37 theaters around the country, each of which will take responsibility for the realization of one of the commissioned plays.

Each play will be produced in one theater's home city in the 2012-2013 season, and the resultant productions will then travel to a single city (likely NYC) for a festival in which the entire new canon will be seen.