The Glitterbox 10-Minute Playfest is a celebration of short, creative, predominantly DIY/queer theater, hosted in the Glitterbox Theater’s new location in Pittsburgh, PA (210 W 8th Ave, Homestead, PA 15120)! The whole event is an essential fundraiser to keep the lights on and pay the rent for Glitterbox, but teams are welcome to sell merch or invite additional donations.
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Next Playfest Dates/Times:
Performance Dates: Friday, September 12th and Saturday, September 13th, 2025
Tech/Dress Rehearsal: Thursday Sept. 11th, 2025
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Doors at 7, Show at 7:30pm for both nights, $10-20 (NOTAFLOF)
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Participation Requirements:
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Participants construct and produce their plays (max of 10 minutes). There isn’t currently a flow for submitting scripts and then GBX finding people to produce it, although that could be rad in the future.
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Participants find their performers and designers, create their sets, and find rehearsal space.
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​There is no theme this time or limit on the number of actors in your show! You don’t need to submit a script to sign up. “Play” is also a term with a lot of room for experimentation. We’ve enjoyed a number of wordless performances, like a two-person clown show pantomime, or a 10 minute hyper-realism nap on a couch. Plays have also included shows where performers read from scripts or even handed scripts to volunteers from the audience. Feel free to play with “play”!
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The stage is a basic raised platform with no closing curtain.
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Play slots are chosen through a mix of first come, first serve, special selection, and offering spots to people there was not space for in previous playfests.
The Glitterbox provides:
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The performance space for:
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1 Dress Rehearsal
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2 performances
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A stage! Basic, solid raised platform with no closing curtain
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A projector if you also provide the laptop/media
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Volunteers to host the show, run sound & lights, stage manage, stage crew, work the door, and run concessions. If you’d like to volunteer for any of these roles too, let us know in our volunteer form!
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Advertising and an enthusiastic audience!
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Some limited assistance finding/sharing props, furniture, costumes (we have a costume closet!!)​
In the "Write a Message" space below, please share the following:
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Let us know if you are available for both nights and the tech rehearsal (Sept 11-13, 2025 at the Glitterbox in Pittsburgh). It’s actually okay if you can only do one night, but we’d love to have you for both, and it’d be great if we could know that now!
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Please let us know the name of your show (feel free to change it up until we print the program handout), a few sentence blurb/teaser, and whoever/wherever you’d like us to link to if added to the line-up. Pictures would be great too in a follow-up! Anything we can use make the difficult choices of which shows to feature - and for promo’ing your fabulous performances on the Glitterbox website and socials as we get closer to showtime.
Even if it doesn’t work out this time, we’re so glad you reached out and that the announcement about our playfest reached you! Thanks for spreading the word too! If you’re out-of-town or have a longer, more involved play in mind, know that we often have folks come through on tour & are always taking rentals via the Rental Interest form on our website. ✨