Guidelines for submissions for PL.A.Y Noir

Photo Credit Lemon Melon Photography

Some Specifics

Please only submit one-act plays within the requested length. While we are flexible with plays that may fall under or beyond by a few pages, submissions with more than one act or more than 25 pages will not be read. We just don't have the time.
Please follow the genre. We don't expect every play to have the classic stock characters that encompass Noir. Five to seven plays with a private dick and a lovely lady can make for a bit of a boring evening. That being said, please keep with the themes that make up a good Noir story - murder, lust, greed, deceit, double-crossing and, of course, a good twist or two. Nothing is worse than reading a well-written play waiting for the twist at the end only to find out the submission was not Noir at all. Sometime down the road we may request other genres, but PL.A.Y Noir is a very specific style. Don't sabotage yourself by submitting something just to get your work read.
Please only submit your play if you are willing to have it included for publication. Selected material will be published in a collection of pieces performed that year. This is a NON-EXCLUSIVE contract meaning, you are free to submit said material for consideration in other publications. More importantly, playwrights retain full ownership of their work after production and in publication. Punk Monkey Productions will in no way own the play in whole or in part.
PDFs and Microsoft Word docs are acceptable files for submission, however if chosen for production, we may request a Word doc version of the piece, as it is easier to format for publication. Please try to have one available should your play be selected.
Be patient. We make it a policy to respond to each submission upon reception. It may take us a few days, but you will receive a confirmation email. If you do not, we encourage you to follow up. We are also attempting to make it a policy to respond to each playwright individually whether their play is selected or not after the reading process.

Guidelines for PL.A.Y Noir

The Basics

Plays submitted to PL.A.Y Noir should ideally range from 10 to 20 pages in length, have a running time no longer than 25 minutes and should be written with the classic Noir fashion in mind and the tradition of the vintage crime novels of Chandler, Hammett, and Cain (think hard-boiled detectives, dangerous dames, unscrupulous villains). Classic films to draw from include: The Maltese Falcon,The Third Man, The Big Sleep, and Chinatown. We always encourage playwrights to submit pieces with multiple strong female roles. While we embrace plays that are set in the Golden Age of Hollywood (1930s-1940s), submissions may take place in present day or even the future (Brick, Blade Runner and Dark City are good examples of modern day or Neo-Noir), and can fall under comedy, drama or even both.