Write It Out! Opens 2025 Cohort Applications for Playwrights Living With HIV and AIDS
Write It Out!, a 10-week free playwriting workshop for people living with HIV and AIDS, is accepting applications for its 2025 cohort and the Write It Out! Prize through July 30 at 11:59 p.m. ET.
Interest applicants must submit a writing sample no more than 10 pages long. Those applying for the prize, which includes a $10,000 unrestricted cash prize and a dramaturg to assist the recipient in developing a new play, must submit an original full-length play (no musicals are accepted). Applicants can choose to request confidentiality if accepted to either the program or the prize — wishing to remain anonymous will not impact the selection process.
Write It Out! has doubled down its commitment to the Poz community amidst threats to federally funded HIV/AIDS programs. The 2025 cohort of writers will work with professional directors and actors to mount their plays on World AIDS Day, Dec. 1. They are provided with a stipend and a trip to New York, including Broadway tickets.
This is the program’s sixth year. It was founded by award-winning Poz playwright Donja R. Love in 2019, with the aim of creating a community for Poz artists and giving them space to tell their stories. In 2021, it introduced the Write It Out! Prize, which was funded in its inaugural year by Billy Porter.
“Write It Out! offers opportunities for its participants to reckon with their HIV status through art. Write It Out! gives its participants a community, a place to belong, a place void of isolation and shame,” one alumnus of the 2023 cohort said in a statement. “At the age of 72, and after living with HIV since 1989, I found it to be one of the seminal events of my life. I am deeply grateful to every person and organization that supports this exceptional work.”
For more information and the application, visit here.
