Audible creates $5 million fund in search of new playwrights

On May 30th, Audible, the Amazon-owned audiobook and radio distributor, announced its plan to create a $5 million dollar fund that will distribute grants to emerging playwrights. The advisory board that will select winners of the grants include Oskar Eutsis (artistic director of the New York Public Theater), Lynn Nottage (writer of Sweat), Leigh Silverman (Tony award winning director) and many more talented people.

The New York Times published an article on the subject. This article explained how the competition and format of the plays would work. They wrote "As audio fiction seems to behaving a moment, in the realm of podcasts, Audible plans to raw from the vast pool of young writers to create one or two-person plays." While some people might be skeptical about listening to plays on headphones and not actually watching them, Donald R. Katz, Audible's chief executive and former journalist and author said "To celebrate live performance in the theater is one thing, but think of professional sports," He continued. "There's the game, but it's also being projected to millions of other people in a really powerful way."

The Verge also published an article on the new fund.  This article shows most of the same information but in a much shorter, easy to read format. I think this one was made for people who are interested in the topic but don't have a lot of time to actually sit down and read in-depth articles about it. An interesting thing that the Verge added was genres and a bit of insight on the 12 plays already chosen to come out later this year. They said " This latest development shows the company taking advantage of the recent popularity of enjoyed podcasts with dramatic arcs and familiar narrative structures, like non-fiction series Serial and S-Town; faux old-school radio show Welcome to Nightvale and the dramatic follow up Alice Isn't Dead; viral post-apocalyptic sci-fi The Deep Vaul; or Gilmlet's Homecoming, a thriller."

Capitalizing on the recent popularity of podcasts is a very innovative way to bring these young playwrights' works to audiences that couldn't have been reached otherwise.

photo originally from: Rumford Falls Times