To date, Playwrights Foundation has served over 500 exceptionally gifted emerging and mid-career writers as they reach for national prominence. Focusing on both cultural diversity and gender parity, we seek to identify exceptional, groundbreaking playwrights early in their careers and give them space, time and professional artistic collaborators to explore new theatrical ideas, allowing them to experiment and take risks with structure, form and/or content in an environment that is free from the pressures of the marketplace.

Many alumni have gone on to become the most important voices in theater, television, and film, shaping the landscape of American culture, and include such visionary artists as Sam Shepard, David Henry Hwang, Paula Vogel, Anna Deavere Smith, Philip Kan Gotanda, Rajiv Joseph, Marcus Gardley, Lauren Gunderson, George Brant and Peter Nachtrieb – to name just a few. Playwrights we have worked with have won every award in the theater, including the Pulitzer, the Obie, the National Critics Circle Award, and many more.