The Bay Area Playwrights Festival is one of the oldest and most successful new play festivals for new works in their developmental stages in the US.

Established in 1976 by Robert Woodruff, the festival has continuously uplifted original and distinctive new voices in the theater, invested in the development of their work, and launched their careers.

It has offered over 500 exceptional, gifted and diverse emerging national writers a showcase for their newest work within an intensive creative crucible.

The Bay Area Playwrights Festival provides playwrights with two readings of their play over the course of two weeks. Each reading has a week of rehearsal before it where the playwright works with a director, dramaturg, and actors. The second developmental reading takes place during a Theater Professionals Weekend, which draws theater professionals from across the country to connect with playwrights and scout new plays (in person or via streaming readings online).

Many prize winning, nationally significant playwrights got their first professional experiences at the BAPF. Alumni include Pulitzer Prize winners Nilo Cruz and Annie Baker; MacArthur Award winners Anna Deavere Smith and Sam Hunter; Glickman award winners Peter Nachtrieb, Liz Duffy Adams, Aaron Loeb, Chris Chen, Lauren Yee, and Marcus Gardley. The festival has supported the early stages of scripts by David Henry Hwang, Paula Vogel, Claire Chafee and Anne Washburn, and by Katori Hall and Rajiv Joseph prior to their Broadway debuts.

BAPF’s ongoing success in supporting and amplifying exceptional, newly emerging writers and launching their ground-breaking new work is its enduring legacy.