Rhinebeck Writers Retreat is hosting 9 consecutive weeklong residencies between June 23 and August 25 in summer 2024 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. There are no actors or musicians available.  For our retreat, you focus solely on writing and are working only with your writing collaborators during your weeklong residency.

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 you live outside of NYC, we will reimburse you for coach plane and train travel up to $1,000.  We pick you up in Poughkeepsie and drive you to the writers’ home.

• 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 5th at 6:00pm EST, there is no fee.
If you submit your application between February 5th at 6:01pm EST and the final deadline of February 12th at 6:00pm EST, there is a $30 application fee. 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 mid-March 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-April.

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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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