Come for the Ojai Playwrights Conference preview event at Bart’s Books on July 21, 2026 from 6 - 7 PM.

Artistic Director Jeremy B. Cohen will share about the upcoming28th Ojai Playwrights Conference running from July 30 to August 2, 2026.‍ ‍

The Ojai Playwrights Conference is a new play development program. The mission of the organization is to develop unproduced plays of artistic excellence that focus on the compelling social, political and cultural issues of our era from diverse playwrights both emerging and established, and to nurture a new generation of playwrights and theatre artists.

Each summer playwrights, directors, dramaturges, and other theatre professionals gather in Ojai for a two-week conference culminating in a New Works Festival, in which new plays are presented in staged readings, and audiences are invited to join in post-play discussions

It began with a playwright, Rick Cleveland, who proposed to Ojai friends Dwier Brown and Kim Maxwell and a Los Angeles friend, the director Chris Fields, that the Ojai Valley would be the ideal site for a program dedicated to helping playwrights develop their new work. Thanks to an Ojai community that enthusiastically volunteered time, skills, labor, money, food and housing, the Ojai Playwrights Conference debuted on the weekend of July 24-26, 1998.

Plays developed at the Ojai Playwrights Conference have been performed on Broadway, in the West End, off-Broadway, and at regional theatres. Both "Fun Home" and "Other Desert Cities" were workshopped at the Ojai Playwrights Conference and were Pulitzer Finalists. "Fun Home" won the Tony Award for Best Musical, and Caroline, or Change won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical. For a full list of past playwrights, see here.

All single tickets for the 2026 Festival are donation-based, or pay what you can.