Led by founding artistic director Paulette Haupt, the annual conference provides writers with two-week residencies in June or July of 2015 to help shape new musical works. Selected writers are provided with a stipend, housing, meals and transportation to support an intensive rehearsal process and four script-in-hand public readings.

Submissions are being accepted through Nov. 23. The application fee is $35. The NMTC accepts electronic and hard copy submissions. No agent is required, and early submissions are "strongly encouraged."

Past conference projects and participants include In The Heights by Quiara Alegria Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda; Avenue Q by Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx, and Jeff Whitty; The Wild Party by Andrew Lippa; Violet by Brian Crawley and Jeanine Tesori; and Nine by Arthur Kopit, Mario Fratti and Maury Yeston.

"The open submission process at the O'Neill Theater Center speaks to the heart of our mission and to the artists we support at the conference," Haupt said in a statement. "So many of the works that have been developed here were written by creative talents who had no agent representation, and were it not for this policy we would likely have overlooked extremely deserving projects in need of development."

Click here from complete guidelines, and directions for application. You can address questions about the submission process and the conference to Anne G. Morgan, Literary Manager at (860) 443-5378 ext. 227 or via email at [email protected].