Why You Should Join the New Play Exchange

In the 2020s, we’re drowning in a sea of subscription services. Everyone wants you to join their Substack (mine’s free) or Patreon. There’s HBO, Netflix, Hulu, Paramount+, Crunchyroll, and BroadwayHD. The list goes on and on. So if I’m trying to sell you on yet another platform, I really have my work cut out for me.

But I promise: you will love the New Play Exchange. Unless you hate theatre, reading, or art, you simply need to join. Let me tell you why.

1 - It’s a Cheap Treasure Trove

It seems like every year now, the major streamers are raising their prices while making their platforms harder to navigate or more ad-filled. The kids on the internet (read: my fellow Gen Z-ers) have taken to calling this “enshittification.”

Thankfully, that isn’t the case with the New Play Exchange (NPX, for short). Since I joined around 2021, the annual price has stayed around the same dollar amount while the functionality has only gotten better. How much do you have to fork over? As of mid-2026, every single subscription offer is under $20. For the price of a couple cocktails, you gain access to nearly 100,000 plays. That’s crazy.

Unlike streaming services and the like, you won’t be inundated with ads on NPX. The closest you’ll see will be other people’s recommendations of plays within the database they’ve seen or read. 

The ability to discover new shows, whether by spotting recommendations or utilizing the search function, is one of NPX’s greatest features. You can search by genre, length, and cast size. You can look up key words and narrow your results to plays that center POC, women, or LGBT people. For actors, you can even do this with monologues.

See, recently NPX added a monologue function. Monologue hunting is always something I found annoying. This helps with the process, providing all the same search tools as with full pieces. Playwrights upload a monologue, enter its details, and link it to one of their existing plays so you can immediately discover its context if you want. For instance, this monologue I have on my profile is directly linked to the play it’s from (Now Featuring Dave Pillard).

2 - Follow the Goods

Speaking of getting the full context of something, NPX allows you to follow whatever writers you want to keep track of (giving you the “context” of their ever-evolving biblio). You won’t have to remember to keep track of them on your own. This is somewhat analogous to following people on a social media site, but NPX calls it “watching.” Whenever a playwright you watch uploads a new script, you’ll see this in your activity feed. You’ll also see the recommendations they give others.

That last bit isn’t relegated to just playwrights. You can watch other readers and organizations as well. Say there’s someone whose taste lines up with yours or whose recommendations you find interesting, even if you don’t like all the plays they tend to enjoy. This lets you keep up with what they’re doing. 

Alternatively, you can witness trends in the industry by watching organizations. Are there certain scripts or types of scripts that theatres and festivals seem to really be loving? What data can you glean from these trends? If you’re a producer, do you want to take notes because that means these sorts of things likely get butts in seats, or do you zag when everyone else zigs in order to make sure you’re throwing out something fresh? For actors, directors, and designers, are you paying attention to what the orgs you want to work for are excited about so you can converse with them about new scripts?

There are paths of goods laid out before you. Do you follow them? And what will you do with the treats?

3 - Creation

I am, at the end of the day, quite a selfish person. It’s not that I have much to gain from you joining NPX—certainly, no monetary stake. I’d be better off aiming you toward my annotated scripts or my Patreon collection selling access to all my plays and musicals for $15.

I want something far more corrupting and devious out of you than your money though.

I want you to feast upon that trail of treats. Digest it as we do with all art. Sip the wine of community. We only issue recommendations on the site. You’ll look on Facebook in writing communities and see such overflowing support and appreciation that you’ll get drunk on it. The sugars eventually send your fingers dancing. I reckon with enough reading, with enough tasting of the process, of scripts in their first draft to the fiftieth, you will sit at a screen, and you will type.

You, my poor dear, will be condemned to write a play.

And I, evil glutton that am, look forward to nothing more than the chance to read it.