You meet a producer at a party and have two minutes to interest them in your work. Do you have the skill to sell yourself? A dependable haven for artists in isolation, Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) announced today that they will host a virtual writer-producer Speed Date event via Zoom on June 29, 2025. Submissions will be accepted through June 13, with priority given to earlier applications. Note that very limited slots are available.

Click here for the application, which should be emailed to TRUPlaySubmissions@gmail.com upon completion. Please make sure to add your name to the document itself, and to include your name FIRST when naming and saving the document.

If accepted, you will be scheduled for either a 2:00 coaching followed by a 4:00 “pitch circuit,” or a 3:00 coaching followed by a 5:30 “pitch circuit.” There is also a fee of $85 for accepted non-members, $75 for accepted TRU members.

The writer-producer virtual Speed Date is a chance to practice your pitching with real producers who are open to and interested in meeting new artists. Producers will provide valuable feedback about your work and your ability to talk about it. Participants will have the opportunity to begin developing relationships with the kind of people who can get their work seen.

“The Speed Date is the only event I know of that gives writers the chance to meet high level producers one-on-one in a room. To me, that’s what makes the Speed Dates so valuable. And you do it with kindness, which I value in life.”

– Vincent Amelio (How Alfo Learned to Love)

Confirmed producers (subject to change) include:

Patrick Blake, producer (Bedlam Theater’s Hamlet/St. Joan, The Exonerated, In the Continuum, Play Dead), founding artistic director Rhymes Over Beats hip hop collective;

Corey Brunish/Corey Brunish Productions, producer (Tony Awards for Pippin, Porgy and Bess, Once on This Island, Company, Parade; also Pulitzer Prize winning Fat Ham, The Play That Goes Wrong, Beautiful, the Carol King Musical, Come from Away, Mothers and Sons, On the Town revival, A Night with Janis Joplin, Bonnie and Clyde):

Dani Davis, Emmy winner, Tony nominee, director and producer (Broadway and national tours include The Lonesome West, Little Women the musical, Billy Elliot, The Wedding Singer, Flashdance and Dreamworks’ Shrek the musical, original and current);

Merrie L. Davis, creative producer, (Tony award for Parade, Tony award for Company Broadway, Olivier award for Company London, Cabaret, The Who’s Tommy, 6 Tony nominations for Eclipsed, Gigi; off-Broadway: Himself and Nora; Museum of Broadway; upcoming: Working Girl, Just In Time: Bobby Darin; Bran Castle; Dead Outlaw; London: Farewell Mister Haffmann);

Clayton Howe, associate producer with Roxedge Entertainment and Drew & Dane Productions (Broadway: Here Lies Love, How To Dance In Ohio; London: Rain, Zoe Saves the World);

John Lant, producer/director/showrunner/consultant specialist for musicals/plays off-Broadway; (17 off-Broadway shows: Frankenstein, Wicked Frozen, It Came from Beyond, Wicked City Blues, Fabulous; Earnestly LGBTQ+, XIMER), artistic director Write Act Rep NYC/LA (20 years); 2-time NAACP, 4-time DramaLogue & 4-time CA for the Arts Winner; PM Carnegie Hall (13 years), TV/Film Studio Operator for 2 Studios for stage to screen or film productions NY & NJ;

Stephanie McCabe, New York/New Orleans based producer/investor (Gypsy, Ain’t Too Proud, Tony Award-winning The Inheritance; Off-Broadway’s Little Girl Blue);

Tamra Pica, TV, film and theater producer and casting director for Write Act Repertory;

Megan Ann Rasmussen, producer (developing Heaven Come Home by award-winning TheaterMakers Studio Member Justin Payne, co-producer of Joy: The Musical, a new Broadway show with Tony award-winning Ken Davenport; also involved with A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical, The Griswold’s Broadway Vacation, Kinky Boots (Off Broadway), and is Lead Producer for the regional Spells of the Sea);

Aly York, indie producer, LA and Philadelphia area.

Coaches: Emileena Pedigo, Bailie Slevin, Chelsey Shannon

Training Producers: Mike Katona*, others tbd

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is the leading network for developing theater professionals, a thirty-two-year-old 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization created to help producers produce, emerging theater companies to emerge healthily and all theater professionals to understand and navigate the business of the arts. Membership includes self-producing artists as well as career producers and theater companies.

TRU publishes an email community newsletter of services, opportunities and productions; presents weekly Community Gatherings about the arts and monthly Town Halls about current social issues; offers a Producer Development & Mentorship Program taught by prominent producers and general managers in New York theater, and also presents Producer Boot Camp workshops to help aspirants develop business skills. TRU serves writers through the TRU Voices Play Reading Series, TRUSpeak: Hear Our Voices evening of short plays about social issues, Writer-Producer Speed Date, a Practical Playwriting Workshop, How to Write a Musical That Works and a Director-Writer Communications Lab.

Programs of Theater Resources Unlimited are supported in part by the Montage Foundation, The Storyline Project and the Leibowitz Greenway Foundation; and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

For more information about TRU membership and programs, visit www.truonline.org.

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