Playwrights with a comedy in a drawer have until November 25 to send it to Bed-Stuy. The Billie Holiday Theatre, the theater at Restoration Plaza on Fulton Street, and the Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop are choosing five new comedic plays for a reading series they call The Billie Loves to Laugh. Submissions are free and opened on November 6.

What the five playwrights get

Each selected play gets a reading by professional actors, followed by a structured critique of the script. The readings run online, one Sunday a month from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Eastern, from February through June 2027. The series ends with an in-person reading of one of the five plays at The Billie Holiday Theatre.

Playwrights who are chosen will hear by January 4, 2027.

What they are looking for

Any style of comedy is welcome: the call lists absurdism, dark comedy, farce, romantic comedy and satire among them. The rules for scripts:

  • One-acts and full-length plays of 40 to 90 pages in standard play format (12-point Times New Roman or similar, with one-inch margins).
  • A cast of no more than eight actors; doubling roles is fine.
  • Musicals and solo shows are not eligible.
  • Scripts that run longer than 90 pages in standard format may not be considered.

The partners

The Billie Holiday Theatre works alongside Restoration, the Bedford-Stuyvesant organization behind Restoration Plaza, whose mission covers economic empowerment, social justice and the arts in Central Brooklyn. The Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop is the playwrights' workshop that runs the reading-and-critique format the series uses, and it handles questions about the call.

How to submit

The call is posted on The Billie Holiday Theatre's website, and the window closes on Wednesday, November 25, 2026. Questions go to the Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop at support@thefsww.org.

The Billie Holiday Theatre is at Restoration Plaza, 1368 Fulton Street, in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The A and C trains stop at Nostrand Avenue, a block away.

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