Sundance Theater Laboratory

In 1981 Robert Redford gathered a group of colleagues and friends at Sundance, Utah to discuss new ways to enhance the artistic vitality of the American film. The result was the establishment of the Sundance Institute, dedicated to the support and development of independent filmmakers. Since its inception, the Sundance Institute has expanded its mission to serve screenwriters, directors, playwrights, performance artists and cinematographers. The Institute has also sustained a playwrights’ development program called the Sundance Theater Laboratory.

The winner of the National Student Playwriting Award and the first-place winner of the Fourth Freedom Forum Playwriting Award will each receive an all-expenses paid fellowship for a nine-day residency during the Sundance Theater Laboratory. The Sundance Theater Laboratory will arrange for the playwrights to meet in a mentoring situation with the Sundance resource directors and dramaturgs and may provide readings of the playwright’s play with actors in attendance at the Lab.