VISIONFEST
Short play festival
LiveWire seeks an image to inspire new plays!
We invite you to VIEW and VOTE on which piece will inspire all the plays submitted to our 4th annual VisionFest. LiveWire kicked off the voting at our first ever visual art gallery exhibit on Saturday, January 28 at the Tom Robinson Gallery (2416 W North Ave).
Voting continues online here until Sunday, February 5th at midnight. If you're interested in viewing the pieces in-person at the gallery, email us at vf4-image@livewirechicago.com to make an appointment, or the gallery will be open on Saturday, February 4 from 1-4pm.
LiveWire will talley the votes and the image with the most votes online and in-person will be chosen as this year's inspiration for all VisionFest 4 plays.
Check out photos from our opening night event
VisionFest 4: Where the image meets the stage will be presented in June of 2012. Further guidelines and timelines for the festival below:
PLAY SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Submissions will be required to use the final image as inspiration. The image should not appear in the play. Submissions are open to local, regional, national and international playwrights.
- Only original material may be submitted.
- LiveWire will ONLY be accepting online submissions.
- Submission should be sent via email vf4-play@livewirechicago.com.
- Submissions should be formatted as a PDF (.pdf) or Word Doc (.doc) with the title of the play as the name of the file (i.e., My-Awesome-Play.doc).
- Do not include playwrights' name on any of the pages in the document.
- In the body of the email, please include: Playwrights' Name, Title of Play, Email Address, Phone Number and Current City of Residence.
- Submissions will be open February 6 through May 5. (Any submissions sent outside of these dates will be discarded.)
- Plays must be between 1 to 10 minutes in length; 1 to 10 pages depending on density of material. (Any scripts over 10 minutes will be discarded.)
- One submission per playwright will be considered.
- Previously produced scripts will NOT be accepted.
VISUAL ART SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (NOW CLOSED):
LiveWire is seeking an Image to guide this year's festival. There are no specific content guidelines for images, but please be mindful that we are looking for visual art that can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Playwrights will be using the winning image to inspire the plays they write for VisionFest 4: Where the image meets the stage.
- Only original material may be submitted.
- LiveWire will ONLY be accepting submissions online.
- Submission should be sent via email to vf4-image@livewirechicago.com.
- Submissions should be formatted as a JPEG (.jpg) or PDF (.pdf) with the title of the piece as the name of the file (i.e., My-Awesome-Image.jpg) -- Please keep file size under 5MB.
- Submission does not need to be the full-size of actual piece. If chosen, LiveWire will ask for actual piece to exhibit at gallery.
- In the body of the email, please include: Artists' Name, Title of Piece, Email Address, Phone Number and Current City of Residence.
- Submissions must be sent between June 15th and Dec 11 to be accepted (Any submissions sent outside of these dates will be discarded.)
- Deadline for submissions was 11:59 p.m. on Dec 11.
- One submission per artist will be considered.
- Images do not have to be new pieces, but must be original.
- Finalists will be announced when program is complete.
LiveWire established VisionFest is 2008 to expose new works to the community and get the community involved in new works. VisionFest begins each year by offering the community a chance to help establish the guidelines for submissions.
For our inaugural festival, we asked the community to help chose a theme. Through an online poll that offered 12 suggestions from the Collective, the theme of Control was chosen for VisionFest 2008. In 2009, we sought suggestions for Environments that plays would take place in. From those suggestions, the Collective chose 12 for the online poll. The community voted and chose a Street Corner as their preferred Environment. Last year, LiveWire chose the theme of Feast for VisionFest3 and asked for suggestions of a line or phrase that all playwrights would have to include in their play. Again, we chose a dozen of those suggestions to place in an online poll. "I can't remember the last time we were all together," won the community vote.
Once the unique guidelines are chosen, LiveWire opens submissions to playwrights to write plays that meet the requirements. Each year, we have received more than a hundreds plays from writers around the world. From those plays, the Collective chooses 6 to 10 plays to present. At the festival, programs are provided with ample space for the community to offer feedback to the playwrights. LiveWire collects the feedback and sends them to the playwright at the end of the run... The community truly has a hand in shaping these plays and we hope they will continue to help shape the festival for year's to come.
More info on VisionFest3: Feast
VisionFest 2008 Info
VisionFest 2008
Preview Article in NewCity Chicago
Questions and/or comments should be directed to livewirechicago@gmail.com.
