International Exchange

In 2012, NNPN began piloting the International Exchange, an initiative that emerged from the Network’s strong and growing interest in new play organizations and associations within other countries.

The first international program was a playwright exchange with PlayWriting Australia, which brought two Australian playwrights and their plays to Washington, DC as part of the 2012 National Showcase. Two NNPN Alumni Playwrights then traveled to Perth to participate in their National Play Festival. We continue to explore possible future partnerships with PlayWriting Australia.

In 2013, NNPN began exploratory visits to Canada for the second international program. Representatives of the Canadian new play community attended the 2013 National Showcase in San Diego, and NNPN expanded the relationship by beginning an exchange between Canadian and US playwrights by partnering with the Banff Playwrights Lab (formerly Banff Playwrights Colony). In alternating years an NNPN Affiliated Artist spends a week developing a script as a part of the Lab and a Canadian writer is invited by NNPN to bring a project to the US. In 2018, Alison Gregory spent time at the Banff Center developing Darling Boud (as in Loud) and in 2019 the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC. served as the host of a weeklong workshop for Marjorie Chan’s Chinoiserie. 2020’s Exchange, which was to bring Liliana Padilla to Vancouver to work on their NNPN Commission has been postponed until 2021 due to the global pandemic.