The Emerging Playwrights Fund

The Emerging Playwrights Fund (the “Fund”) is calling theatrical visionaries who are ready to push boundaries and captivate audiences through the intimate, limitless world of audio drama.

This is storytelling without walls. Your words, world-class performers, and millions of listeners waiting to be transported.

Who Should Apply

We're seeking early-career theatrical writers who craft immersive fictional experiences that engage, entertain, and inspire. We value diverse perspectives, innovative approaches to form, and stories that harness the unique intimacy and immediacy of audio storytelling. Whether your work explores internal worlds through sound, creates vivid landscapes through language, or experiments with narrative structure—if it pushes boundaries and demands to be heard, we want it.

For this cycle, we're particularly interested in original audio dramas in the following genres:

• Action & Adventure

  • including Mystery, Thrillers, Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy

• Core Fiction

  • including Contemporary Fiction, Romance, and Literary Companion Pieces

About the Fund

Audible is a leading creator and provider of premium audio storytelling. Since 2017, our theater initiative, which includes the Minetta Lane Theatre in New York City, has been built on one mission: to radically increase access to exceptional plays and performances.

The Emerging Playwrights Fund sits at the heart of that mission. We invest in and nurture self-identifying emerging playwrights—some of the most inventive, creative, and provocative storytellers working today. Through the Fund, we connect extraordinary performers with remarkable original work, amplifying new voices and bringing them to millions of listeners. To date, Audible Theater has commissioned 50 projects through the Fund. We support the creation of original dramatic work written with audio in mind, but theatrical in spirit—stories that live and breathe in the listener's imagination.

What the Fund Provides

Audible will select up to five applicants to receive a fee of $25,000 each to write and develop an original audio play. In addition to the fee, Audible may provide the selected applicants with creative and logistical resources to assist each artist and project, including but not limited to: development and production fees, casting expertise and talent budget, access to Audible’s state-of-the-art studio and production equipment.

Audible is dedicated to commissioning, developing, and producing work that reflects the diversity of our listeners and our world. We actively encourage submissions from emerging playwrights of all races, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, and backgrounds.

Your voice, amplified.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions will be accepted from September 23, 2026 – November 18, 2026 (11:59PM EST). To be considered as an applicant for a commission, please CLICK HERE to submit the following:

1. Playwright Application

2. One full-length script for an original play (in English language only) that represents your voice ("Script”). Submitted as a pdf or word doc

3. A professional biography (up to 300 words)

4. A pitch or summary for an original audio play (Action & Adventure OR Core Fiction preferred)

Please note, by submitting an application you will be directed to a third-party website (hosted by Accubate) and you agree to the applicable Audible and Accubate privacy notice(s).

Eligibility criteria

Any applicant over the age of 18, resident in US or UK may submit an application. Employees or independent contractors, or immediate family members (spouses, domestic partners, parents, grandparents, siblings, children, and grandchildren) or those living in the same household of employees or independent contractors of Audible Inc., including any of its affiliates (collectively, “Audible”), or any entity involved in any aspect of the administration of the Fund may not submit a Script for consideration, unless it is determined by Audible in its sole discretion in accordance with Audible’s then current policies and procedures that no conflict of interest exists in connection with accepting the relevant submission for consideration.

Timeline

Submissions are only accepted in the time period stated above. Due to the number of Scripts that Audible receives, Audible will only consider one submission at a time from each applicant and will not consider resubmissions, including those that have been significantly revised. Audible does not provide feedback on submissions that are not selected. Applicants will be notified regarding the status of their submissions via email, typically within three months of the date it was submitted. Thank you in advance for your patience while we process your submission.

Terms & Conditions (“Terms”)

All submissions must be wholly original and unpublished creations of the applicants. Applications cannot be edited post submission. By submitting a Script, each applicant: (a) represents and warrants that the submitted work is his/her 100% original creation, the submitted work will not violate or infringe the rights (including copyrights and rights of privacy and publicity) of any other person or party, and all materials and elements comprising the submitted work are exclusively owned or controlled by the applicant, (b) agrees to be bound by these Terms and the decisions of Audible Inc. (and its affiliates)in connection with the administration and operation of the Fund, and (c) meets all of the eligibility criteria. Audible may determine, in its sole discretion, that an applicant is ineligible to submit a work for consideration if these requirements, and others described in these Terms, are not satisfied to Audible’s satisfaction.

Applicants who are selected for the Fund, may, if all these Terms are met, enter into Audible’s standard commission agreement (or similar agreement) for development of their selected submission, as well as potential distribution of the developed submission on the Audible service. Development, production, and/or distribution of the selected submission is contingent upon execution of this agreement. Applicant acknowledges and agrees that the commission agreement provides for, among other things: (i) an exclusive option for Audible to produce and/or present one or more live stage productions of the work, (ii) exclusive, worldwide audio rights for Audible to produce, distribute and sell audio-only versions of the work in all audio formats and all languages, in perpetuity, (iii) Audible's participation in proceeds from any disposition of subsidiary rights, and (iv) the right for Audible to shop any ancillary production based on the work. In the event any of the selected applicants do not agree with the above stated requirements, Audible may reject the selected submission and select an alternative selected submission (provided the rest of the eligibility conditions are met).

Applicants understand and acknowledge that (i) Audible is in the business of developing and distributing content, (ii) Audible receives numerous submissions (both from outside and from within Audible) of content ideas and creative materials, (iii) Audible is continually developing ideas, formats, shows, stories, concepts, artwork, music, and the like, and (iv) content developed or distributed by Audible may resemble, be similar to, or contain identical material or elements found in works submitted to Audible for consideration. By submitting a project via this program, each applicant understands and agrees that Audible is not prohibited or restricted from developing or distributing content that may contain elements similar or identical to an applicant’s submission, and Audible will not be obligated to any applicant in any manner if such similar or identical elements were developed or obtained by Audible either independently or from sources other than the applicant’s submitted work.

Applications for the Fund are voluntary and imply full and unrestricted acceptance of all the conditions in these Terms and related policies. Submissions that do not meet the requirements and conditions of the Fund set out in these Terms will not be valid.

These Terms are made in and shall be construed in accordance with the laws of the State of New York, without regard to its conflict of law principles, and the courts of New York located in New York, New York shall have exclusive jurisdiction with respect to disputes arising under these Terms.