Naplwrimo’s mission is to encourage and nurture playwrights while fostering community and the creation of new theatrical works on a global level.

Nap-ple-wri-mo.
See, it’s not that hard to prounounce !
It stands for National Playwriting Month... and yah , we should take out the na for national because really we are in-ternational but so is NaNoWriMo and they inspired us. So there.
NaPlWriMo was created in 2006 by Seattle based theatre artist, Dorothy Lemoult. She has since relocated to the Bay area but that's another story for another time.

I was watching all the excitement happening around NaNoWriMo and being a playwright and not a novelist, I was really feeling left-out. I was talking to my friend Steve ( another playwright) and told him jokingly : “maybe we should just have NaPlWriMo.” “YES, YES”, he exclaimed. “Do it ! You should. You should really do it.” And so I did !

 

The first edition of Naplwrimo, in 2006, had 20 participants. Everyone had a blast and 13 won. In 2007, twice as many people showed up online on November 1st. Alas, the site crashed on that day leading to much confusion for the participants and much sleep deprivation for Dorothy, its fearless leader whose rudimentary web skills only went so far. NaPlWriMo 2007 did end up running successfully even though its grassroots web ways tried everyone's patience.

Shortly after that, NaPlWriMo became a partner artist project of The Shunpike. The Shunpike provided a 501c3 umbrella for NaPlWriMo, which, in plain English, means that money could be raised and donations tax deductible.

On October 15th 2008, NaPlWriMo launched its new website, on a much improved platform : Drupal. Thanks to many kind donors and a fabulous web designer, NaPlWriMo will kick off its 3rd edition in style. These who participated in 2006 and 2007 will surely notice the significant upgrade !

Write a play in November. That’s what it’s all about. No screenplays. Screenplays aren’t the same thing and besides, we like Script Frenzy and they do it in April. (You can write another play there too...)

Oh and have I mentioned it's FREE !

What more do you need to know ?
You know you want to play with us...
So go ahead... Sign up, familiarize yourself with the Rules of The Rhino , and we'll see you in the starting blocks come November 1 !