Yes, Working Title Playwrights is respectfully asking for your year-end financial support of new plays through the development of playwrights. But we’re not asking in a vacuum. We want to know what your favorite plays were in 2011? Were they classics, regional or world premieres?

Not taking anything away from the classics, but chances are if you attended a “world premiere” this past year, you couldn’t help but be swept up in all the anticipation and excitement that “new” breeds.

Perhaps it was the media buzz with exclusive interviews and insights from preview nights that first reeled you in. Or maybe it was a friend or family member you discussed the play with and decided that you absolutely had to go!

What did you wear that night? Who drove? In reading the playbill, could you sense the pleasure of the director who got to put the official first spin on “how it’s done”? Do you recall the thrill leaping to you from the curtain speech delivered by the theatre producer to be the first to present the production to you eager theatergoers? Did you feel in your chest the palpable exhilaration among the actors breathing life into roles never played before on stage?

Did you note the playwright, perhaps on opening or some other random night, taking his or her turn with celebrity among the crowd before settling into a seat in the audience, quietly hoping that the quips, lines and laughs soon to come would land with you just the way they’d envisioned? Did you detect the nerves, or did they appear cool as a cucumber?

Really. Did you see him? Did you see her? In metro Atlanta, we’re talking about WTP members like Margaret Baldwin and Topher Payne, who were among seven local playwrights nominated for the 2011 Gene-Gabriel Moore Playwriting Award for plays they developed, in part, through WTP: Night Blooms (Horizon Theatre) and Tokens of Affection (Georgia Ensemble Theatre). We’re also thinking of Johnny Drago (Kiss of the Vampire, Process Theatre), Raymond Fast (The Scrapbook, Pumphouse Players) and Daphne Mintz (In Lieu of Flowers, Lionheart Theatre)—WTP members who were three of five nominees in this year’s MAT Awards Original Works category. Their scripts were also developed, in part, through WTP.

And then there’s Theroun D’Arcy Patterson, who received the 2011 Essential Theatre's Playwriting Award for his WTP-developed play, A Thousand Circlets. Did you see him at Actor’s Express this past summer, where his play went on to be the most-attended, biggest grossing production of Essential Theatre's Festival of Plays?

Perhaps you caught a glimpse of Hank Kimmel at Academy Theatre, where his Divided Among Themselves, a 2010 Ethel Woolson Lab winner, received its premiere production. Or maybe

you were in attendance when a variety of short plays by WTP members Nick Boretz, David Fisher, again Hank Kimmel and Sharon Mathis also premiered there in Avondale Estates.

Or maybe you “sprung forward” with us at OnStage Atlanta, when WTP managed to create eight brand new 10-minute plays written, directed and produced overnight with our third annual 24-Hour Plays event, only this time we did it in 23 Hours with the switch to Daylight Savings Time!

Over this past year, if you did see our playwrights—any of them, then perhaps you were able to detect something in all of their faces: gratitude.

Gratitude to be able to feed their soul-felt creative cravings through playwriting. Gratitude that in a sea of scripts, theirs were selected to see the light of stage. Gratitude for a community that supports new plays. Gratitude for those who shared their time and talent in bringing their vision to life. Gratitude for people like you, who make it all possible.

Working Title Playwrights joins them in expressing that gratitude to you, a lover and supporter of new American plays. The accomplishments we’ve mentioned are merely a sampling of how WTP is helping playwrights succeed in telling their stories for the stage. This couldn’t possibly be done without financial support from friends like you. You help create the buzz. You contribute to the excitement of “new.”

And there is more in store for you to look forward to in 2012:

Sharon Mathis’ short play, Bombs, written via WTP’s acclaimed Kick-Ass Playwriting Workshop Series, will be included in Manhattan Repertory Theatre's One-Act Play Festival in January.

A 2010 Ethel Woolson Lab winner, Evelyn in Purgatory, by Topher Payne, just won the 2012 Essential Theatre Playwriting Award and will receive its premiere production as part of the 2012 Essential Festival of New Plays—as will WTP-developed script, Bat-Hamlet, by Jordan Pulliam.

And as WTP dominated Atlanta's Theatre-to-Go 2012 Winners with six current and immediate past members being chosen for ATG's eight production slots for the coming year, you’ll be seeing the work of Roz Ayres-Williams, Raymond Fast, David L. Fisher, Evan Guilford-Blake, Bill Gibson and Bill Wellborn around town.

So what plays will you be excited about seeing in 2012? If it’s a new work, it may very well have six degrees of separation from Working Title Playwrights. Please consider making an end-of-year contribution to Working Title Playwrights. Your gift is 100% tax-deductible and guarantees the continued development of new American plays and playwrights for the global stage. WTP is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization that operates on roughly $20,000 annually. This year, our goal is to raise $25,000 by March 31st, 2012. We are primarily funded by membership fees and contributions from friends like you.

With your support, WTP is able to offer fresh, challenging developmental workshops and opportunities like the Kick-Ass Playwriting Workshop Series, The Ethel Woolson Lab, Monday Night Critique Sessions and Masterclasses with some of the nation’s leading playwrights and theater professionals including Carlos Murillo, Pearl Cleage, Celise Kalke, and Susan Booth.

So if you too get a rush and a reminder that it’s great to be alive when you do something new, please make your contribution now. We gleefully await and acknowledge your support today, as future audiences will anxiously await the curtain to rise on our playwrights’ new plays tomorrow. Thank you! We can’t wait to see you in the audience.

Please mail your contribution to: WTP, P.O. Box 585, Decatur, GA 30030-0585,or donate online at: http://www.razoo.com/story/In-With-The-New---Wtp-2011-Year-End-Campaign