2025 Script Tease of Short Plays Competition
The 2025 Competition begins January 1, 2025.
This competition is open to San Diego playwrights and screenwriters only.
Pleaser read all the details and submission guidelines in the section below, then submit to:
Deadline: June 30, 2025, 11:59pm
Six cash prizes:
- First Place: $200
- Second Place: $150
- Third Place: $100
- $50 each to three plays worthy of Honorable Mention from the Dea Hurston Honorable Mention Fund.
Dea Hurston was a two-time winner in the Scripteasers annual short play contest. As a strong supporter of the annual contest, her anonymous donations funded the Honorable Mention winners’ prizes. In her memory, her family and friends are continuing her efforts.
Sponsored by her loving husband Osborn Hurston, and her dear friends, Susan Gembrowski Baker, KM McNeel, Jean Seager and Roy Sekigahama.
DETAILS:
We only accept short, 10-minute, or one-act plays, with a maximum length of 30 pages. Please don’t try to game the page length by shrinking your margins or your font.
(No musicals, children’s theater, literary adaptations or AI generated plays will be accepted.)
- Submissions cannot be excerpts from full length plays.
- There is no entry fee, and each author may submit up to three short plays.
- Each play will receive feedback from at least one judge.
- The prize winners are guaranteed a reading by The Scripteasers. Those readings may be in person or online – to be determined by Scripteasers. Each reading will include a moderated discussion with audience feedback following the reading.
- Scripts not selected for cash awards but deemed noteworthy by the judges may be selected for a reading.
- Please note: do not submit your script(s) unless you are able to attend a Zoom or in-person reading in the Fall/Winter 2025 on a mutually agreeable Friday evening. If your play wins, you MUST be “present” in order to receive your prize, no exceptions.
- Entries are judged anonymously.
- DEADLINE: June 30, 2025, 11:59pm.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES, PLEASE READ CAREFULLY: Please submit your entry(s) via email to info@scripteasers.org, with the subject line “SCRIPTEASE 2025” and include the following:
- An anonymous copy of the script in proper script format*. Please include the TITLE and a CAST OF CHARACTERS with the genders and ages of all the characters.
- In the body of your email please include:
- The Title of the script.
- Your full name
- Your preferred email address
- Your physical address
- Your phone number.
Scripteasers will:
- Confirm receipt of your submission and treat your work with respect.
- Notify you of the results of the competition in September 2025.
- Work with all prize-winning playwrights to arrange convenient reading dates and a moderated discussion with audience feedback.
OTHER IMPORTANT DETAILS:
- Submissions are limited to the first 100 entries received.
- The following plays are ineligible for submission: plays that have had a public reading in person or online, have been previously produced or published, or have been previously submitted to, or read at, The Scripteasers. If a play is submitted that then falls into any of the categories above before the end of the contest, it must be withdrawn by the playwright.
- There will only be one cash prize per author.
- All scripts must follow standard dramatic formatting.*
- Scripteasers reserves the right not to award a prize if in its opinion no submission is worthy.
Questions? Please contact us at:
We look forward to receiving your submission!
*A sample of standard dramatic formatting can be found here: