Rhinebeck Writers Retreat is hosting 9 consecutive weeklong residencies between June 25 and August 27 in summer 2023 for 9 musical theatre writing teams. The writers live together in their own home in the Hudson Valley near Rhinebeck, NY. Only one musical theatre writing team is in residence each week, so we can focus our resources on one team at a time. There are no actors available, as this retreat focuses solely on writing.

All the writers' costs are covered by our generous donors including the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, The ASCAP Foundation Bart Howard Fund, The Noël Coward Foundation, and hundreds of individual donors. Thanks to them, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat provides each writing team:

• A fully furnished private home for one week, Sunday to Sunday

• Food – you shop on your first day and cook for yourself

• Pianos – an upright acoustic piano and Yamaha P125 digital keyboard.

• Travel – For writers living in the New York City area, we cover round trip train from NYC to Poughkeepsie. If you have a car, we reimburse your gas. If writers live outside of NYC and need to fly in, we reimburse actual air fare up to $1000 per writer.

• All the supplies you need.

• A $550 stipend for each writer

• Peer advisor – We'll decide together which of our Sounding Board members (artistic advisors) will work with you before you arrive in Rhinebeck to provide dramaturgical guidance and discuss your goals for your week. Your peer advisor will be connecting with you remotely either through Zoom, phone call, or other means that work for all.

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If you submit your application before February 13th at 6:00pm EST, there is no fee.
If you submit your application between February 13th at 6:01pm EST and the final deadline of February 27th at 6:30pm EST, there is a $30 application fee.  You will be automatically prompted to pay after you hit “Submit” on the online application page. If the fee poses a problem for you, please email us at asst@rhinebeckwriters.org.

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There are two rounds of evaluation. In the first round, each application is reviewed by 2 readers. You will know by early April whether or not your application will continue to the final round. In the final round, all applications are read by 6 readers. Our reviewers are artists, artistic directors, producers, and other leaders in the musical theatre field.  We pay our readers, as we believe it is important that artists are paid for their time. They review the musical as well as the writers' goals for their week as stated in your application's "Background and Artistic Goals." The participants will be announced in mid-May.

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Before you begin the online application, all writers on the team must read "Eligibility & Guidelines". 

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This page lists all you need to gather to complete the application and has the link to the online application. You will need to have all your information ready before you begin the application.  You will not be able to save your work and come back to it; it has to be completed it in one sitting.  

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If you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to email asst@rhinebeckwriters.org.

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