Highlights from the 2025 New Play Conference

Video by ThinkMotion Video

Join us…

…for the 21st Annual New Play Festival!

May 24th-30th, 2026

Click here for information about this year’s playwrights and guest artists!

The New Play Festival began in 2006 as the Great Plains Theatre Conference with the Metropolitan Community College (MCC). In 2020, GPTC was redefined and renamed as the Great Plains Theatre Commons, an independent nonprofit that functions in vibrant partnership with MCC to continue the annual New Play Festival each spring at the Swanson Conference Center on MCC’s historic Fort Omaha Campus. (Map)

Each year, the Festival helps to develop up to 10 new scripts that are selected from a pool of 700-1000 submissions from across the country. Local and national playwrights, actors, directors, dramaturgs, designers, and Omaha community members come together for a week of stories, workshops, staged readings, meals, performances and celebrations. All public festival events are free to attend.

The Annual New Play Festival includes:

  • Theatre workshops, luncheon panels, and daily PlayLab staged readings.
  • National dramaturgs who work with each playwright, providing support before, during, and after the Festival.
  • The final production of the GPTC Commons Season presented during Festival week, providing an example of the quality of script that emerges from GPTC’s unique process.
  • The Design Wing, which brings five emerging designers from across the country to contribute to the script development process from a visual perspective.
  • The Young Dramatists Fellowship Program, which provides local high school playwrights with access to some of the country’s top plays and playwrights.

GPTC welcomes nationally known playwrights, directors and actors each year as guest artists who nurture and mentor new and emerging playwrights and engage with Festival attendees through various workshops, PlayLab feedback sessions and seminars.

We accept submissions annually between September 1 and October 15. Click the link below for more information on how to apply.

How To Send Us Your Play – Great Plains Theatre Commons

The 2026 New Play Festival is made possible with generous support from the Douglas County Visitors Improvement Fund, Humanities Nebraska, the Mutual of Omaha Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Nebraska Council for the Arts, and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment.