Critics' Workshop

O'Neill Theatre Center's National Critics Institute Scholarship

The National Critics Institute Scholarship (NCI) offers a work/study program for professional theater critics and arts writers. In its 28-year history, NCI has attracted more than 200 writers from newspapers of all sizes, magazines, and TV and radio stations to its four-week conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut, each summer. The National Critics Institute enjoys a close relationship with the National Playwrights Conference.

NCI was established to assist in elevating the level of arts criticism in the United States and to provide writers the opportunity to grow at the same pace as the arts and artists whose work they review and interpret. These goals are made possible by daily critiques of plays and films in tutorial sessions with a resident master critic.

KCACTF, in association with NCI, will present a National Critics Institute Scholarship for KCACTF. The final selection will be made by the NCI director, Ernie Schier.

At each of the KCACTF regional festivals, students nominated from institutions that have entered an Associate or Participating production will be asked to write critiques of a selected number of plays. One student from each of the eight regions will be selected as a finalist for the national award. Critiques from these eight (one from each regional festival) will be forwarded to the KCACTF national office. The finalists' critiques must be clearly labeled with student critics' name, address, and college or university.

One critique from the regional festival is due in the KCACTF national office after the close of the regional festival and no later than March 15.

The national winner will attend the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center during its national playwriting conference (July 2006), working with leading professional newspaper and magazine critics from across the United States. All expenses will be paid. In addition, each region’s Critic Institute Finalist will become eligible for a matching grant from the National Critics Institute to attend the summer institute program. It is expected that the sponsoring school meet the match.

To register, please click here.

For information, contact:

Dan Patterson
Dept. of Theatre & Dance
Keene State College
Keene, NH 03435
Office: (603)358-2198
Fax: (603)358-2145
Email: dpatters@keene.edu