2013-09-112012-12http://hdl.handle.net/2346/50774This dissertation explores the relationship between playwriting festivals in community theatres and organizational self-awareness. Formal scholarship on playwriting festivals in community theatres is virtually nonexistent. There exist books written about creating and operating a community theatre and there exist books and articles about playwriting and specific festivals, but there appears to be no formal research concerning why a community theatre might want to produce a playwriting festival and how a community theatre would develop a playwriting festival in the context of its unique mission and operational style. Determining why a playwriting festival would be important to a theatre is a function of organizational self-awareness, defined as, the ability of the group, through its membership, to evaluate its goals and values and to implement them through procedures that fit its operational style. Organizational self-awareness is used throughout the dissertation as a touchstone for organizations, and particularly community theatres, when considering or evaluating a playwriting festival and is the focus of the first chapter. The second and third chapters are case studies of the 2007 Hill Country Playwriting Festival, The Spokane Civic Theatre, Denver Center Theatre, and the Texas Tech Department of Theatre and Dance playwriting festivals that the organizations consider or have considered successful. Finally, using examples from the case studies, the fourth chapter examines the similarities (or differences) between all four festivals. I suggest ways in which a theatre contemplating a playwriting festival might envision and stage the event to define success at the outset and to make the festival relevant to the organization and members.application/pdfen-USPlaywriting festivalsCommunity theatreOrganizational self-awarenessDissertationUnrestricted.