Season 23: Call for Proposals

The Pear Theatre is issuing a Call for Proposals for its seven show mainstage 23rd Season. The Pear Theatre is building a reputation for being the South Bay home for fearless, inclusive theatre and we welcome bold submissions.

Submission deadline: Friday, January 12, 2024 at 5:00 pm PST.
Submissions should be sent to CFP@thepear.org. The Pear is not accepting mail submissions at this time. Partial submissions and those that are submitted after the deadline will be discarded.

Mission of The Pear

Pear Theatre was founded in 2002 with a mission to offer theatre that challenges our community to see all aspects of our world fully, with intellectually stimulating, emotionally powerful, and professional productions.

Pear Commitment to Diversity

To fully portray today’s world, we are dedicated to engaging diverse voices in our programming and to fostering an inclusive environment in all aspects of our work as artists, staff, volunteers and audience.

The Pear Theatre is committed to supporting our diverse audiences, actors, writers, directors and designers, education and our community at large.

Things to Consider

  • Check out The Pear’s commitment for how we intend to move forward strategically. Proposals that obviously have not read this statement as well as our BLM statement will be discarded.

  • The Pear is committed to challenging audiences through the interpretation of classics and through new works.

  • The Pear is looking for productions with casts of 8 or less except in rare circumstances. Musicals are ok.

  • Directors MUST be local to the Bay area.

  • Writers need not be local to the Bay area, although Bay area artists will be preferred.

  • Artists from diverse backgrounds (nonwhite, non-cisgender, and/or non-straight) are strongly encouraged as a part of The Pear’s goal to engage a wider set of storytelling voices in The Bay area.

Proposal Contents

Interested writers or directors should submit a proposal containing the following in Word or PDF format:

Writers & Directors

  1. Resume and Bio of submitting artist (a significant amount of experience is not necessary [ directing can be a mentorship process], just want to know a little bit about you).

  2. An Artist Statement: what is it you stand for as an artist, why do you do what you do,

  3. Name and Summary of Project: The summary of the project should include a brief (150 - 200 words) synopsis of the play being proposed.

  4. The Why: A brief description of why - based on your knowledge of The Pear, it’s history, and its goals moving forward - you are proposing a production of this play and why now.

Writers

  1. A full, final draft of the script in PDF format with:

  • Character and cast breakdown.

  • Setting and time description.

  1. All scripts must be full length to be considered (runtime between 80 and 120 minutes). Bilingual scripts are welcomed. The primary language of the audience will be English. Scripts must be original and the sole property of the submitting writer.

  2. Submitting writers are invited to explore The Pear Playwrights’ Guild and submit for acceptance - the PPG offers playwrights consistent opportunities to read and present their work at The Pear.

Directors

  1. A full Director’s Proposal containing:

  • A description of what you think the proposed play is about, themes you’d like to explore, and what the casting requirements would be.

  • A description of the technical elements you’d be interested in utilizing for this production.Why you are the right person to helm this production - your personal investment.

2. The “why this production and why now” question will be of particular importance in Director’s Proposals, please keep this in mind.

NOTE: at this time, we are not accepting proposals from writers who also wish to direct.

Season 23 Selection Process

Every proposal along with other production ideas will be read thoroughly by a panel consisting of The Pear Executive Artistic Director, members of The Pear Board of Directors, members of The Pear Steering Committee, and members of the community. Final selections are made by the Executive Artistic Director.

The Pear is committed to utilizing this process to choose several projects for the upcoming season. Tentative season selection is made by January 31, 2024- with outreach to selected proposals happening following this. Due to time constraints, The Pear is not able to give feedback on every proposal. Submission is no guarantee of selection or future work at The Pear Theatre.

Chosen projects will be contracted for production rights or as a director at The Pear.