Submit: Florida Rep Play Lab, Deadline: 12/5/25
Each year, Florida Repertory Theatre hosts the PlayLab Festival of New Works, a dynamic celebration of storytelling and theatrical innovation.
2026 Call for Submissions!
Florida Repertory Theatre, an Associate Member of the National New Play Network, is seeking submissions for its 2026 PlayLab Festival, slated for April 30 – May 1.
PlayLab is an intensive weekend of rehearsals, readings, talkbacks, and development that brings professional playwrights, directors, actors, and audiences together to work on up to five new plays in a laboratory setting.
The deadline for submissions is Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2025. The festival’s reading committee will read and evaluate the submitted works, and the theatre will announce the selected plays and playwrights in early 2026. Each showcased playwright joins the development process to work on their play with a company of professional actors and a director in preparation for a public reading.
SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
Florida Rep seeks plays that have not yet had a full professional production, but that are nearly ready for production. Those interested should submit a PDF of their play to the email address below by 5 PM on Wednesday, Dec. 1.
One play per playwright is allowed. Casts of 8 actors or fewer are preferred for budgetary reasons, though plays with larger casts are not automatically disqualified. Florida Rep asks playwrights to keep this preference in mind as they choose a play to submit for consideration.
Email Submission to: Submissions@FloridaRep.org
Please include the following information in the body of the submission email:
Play Title
Playwright’s Name
Cast Size (number of actors needed; not number of characters if doubling is used)
Brief Synopsis
Development History
Link to NPX page (if applicable)
NOTE to Literary Agents: Please submit plays as separate emails, not as multiple PDF attachments.
Florida Rep produces a wide variety of comedies, dramas, musicals, and new plays in its professional season and seeks to curate a PlayLab Festival that reflects that variety. Florida Rep will consider plays looking for Rolling World Premiere partners with NNPN member theatres. Playwrights or agents will receive a confirmation of their submission.
Florida Rep often chooses plays from its festival to be produced in subsequent seasons and seeks plays for submission that are ready to move into the late stages of development and production.
The Florida Rep Reading Committee looks forward to reading and evaluating the 2026 submissions!
More about PlayLab
Each year, Florida Repertory Theatre hosts the PlayLab Festival of New Works, a dynamic celebration of storytelling and theatrical innovation. Since its founding in 2014, PlayLab has become a vital part of our commitment to developing new voices and expanding the American theatre canon.
The annual festival features five new plays—a curated mix of works by both emerging talents and established playwrights—that reflect Florida Rep’s mission to produce a wide variety of compelling, thought-provoking theatre. Over four days, these plays are presented in staged readings, followed by talkbacks and audience conversations that help shape the work’s future. PlayLab also features a panel with all of the playwrights, where audience members get to learn more about their process and their work, and sometimes a keynote address.
What makes PlayLab unique is our focus on collaboration. We bring the playwrights to Fort Myers to work alongside professional directors, actors, and stage managers in a supportive, creative environment. These artists share their work, receive feedback, and often make meaningful revisions as part of the development process.
Florida Rep is proud Associate Member of the National New Play Network (NNPN), and the NNPN is a partner in helping nurture these voices and bring powerful new stories to the stage. Many plays and musicals showcased in PlayLab have received fully realized productions at Florida Repertory Theatre and other professional and educational institutions. To date, Florida Rep has given fully realized productions to eight plays featured in PlayLab.
Florida Rep strives to educate and empower our audiences to go out and talk about new plays, how they are created, and why they are important. PlayLabis an engaging and impactful experience for everyone involved, and we hope you join us for it.
Save the date for Florida Rep’s 2026 PlayLab Festival – April 30 – May 3, 2026.
YES, I POST SUBMISSION OPPS
https://audreycefaly.substack.com/t/submissions (bookmark this page)
LEAN MORE ABOUT AUDREY
Visit my website for more about me and the work I do!
Audrey Cefaly’s plays (Alabaster, Maytag Virgin, The Gulf, The Last Wide Open, Trouble) have garnered the Lammy Award, the Calicchio Prize, the NNPN Goldman Prize, the Edgerton, and a Pulitzer nomination. Her works have been produced at Signature Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse, Barter Theatre, Merrimack Rep, Florida Studio, Florida Rep, Gulfshore Playhouse, and countless others. Cefaly is a Dramatist Guild Foundation “Traveling Master,” an Arena Stage playwright cohort, and a recipient of the Walter E. Dakin Fellowship from the Sewanee Writers Conference. She is published by Concord Theatricals, Applause Books, Smith & Kraus and TRW.