You, dear reader, might be looking for some ways to get out of your house these days. Perhaps you’re watching too much Netflix and are starving for one of the old, cathartic, in-person art forms.

Well, theater not only still exists, but it might be as lively as ever on June 29 at 7 p.m. at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History. That night, the Jewish museum, along with the Kaiserman JCC, Tribe 12, Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel and Society Hill Synagogue, will play host to the 15th Annual National Jewish Playwriting Contest.

Audience members will watch 20-minute excerpts from three finalists and then vote on the winner. The finalists “were selected from over 355 submissions from 32 states and eight countries by panels of arts and Jewish luminaries in New York, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Boston, Hartford, Tel Aviv, Houston, Philadelphia and Toronto,” according to a news release from the Jewish Plays Project, which runs the competition.

Philadelphia Jews will not be the only voting cohort during the process. The three plays are being shown across 10 cities and 1,000 audience members. But the Jewish Plays Project wanted Philadelphia to host the final event this year to align with the city’s America 250 celebration.

“All of that feels like a perfect opportunity. We’ve often done our contest in New York, sort of the theatrical capital of the country,” said David Winitsky, the founder and executive artistic director of the Jewish Plays Project. “So, we said, ‘What voices do we need to have in the conversation? Philly is a great and large Jewish community.’”

Theatre Ariel, Philadelphia’s salon theater company that stages Jewish shows, is providing the actors for the competition event at the Weitzman. The organization often pulls finalists and winners from the National Jewish Playwriting Contest for its annual season of four shows.

“We are very excited and honored to be a part of it. JPP is a really important part of the broader Jewish theater community,” said Jesse Bernstein, Theatre Ariel’s producing artistic director. “A lot of us involved in this look to JPP to see who the finalists are. JPP has really been a great sort of vanguard in helping all of us find talent, plays, stories and also give Jewish playwrights a place to submit their stuff.”

The Jewish Plays Project receives about 375 scripts each year for this competition, according to Winitsky. Then, judges spend three to four months reading them and narrowing down the field to a small group of finalists. At that point, they release them to the public through these performances.

Winitsky calls this “artistic democracy.”

“We go out to our 10 communities and ask those folks, what do you think are the most important plays and the most important stories?” he said.

The artistic director described “real democracy” as “an in-depth conversation about difficult ideas.” Plays with Jewish themes these days, quite naturally, are filled with in-depth conversations about difficult ideas.

“We have talked about this together, and we have decided we’re going to go in this direction together,” Winitsky said.

It’s also about coming together in person.

“This is theater. We are a live form,” Winitsky said. “It’s the most exciting form because we are here together and doing it together.”

In the submissions for this year’s event, Winitsky and the other judges noticed a few recurring themes: developments in the Middle East; the Jewish immigrant story and how it reflects immigrant stories of today; and the discussion around changes in Jewish life in the United States.

“Right now, we need positive and complex Jewish stories out in front of as many audience members as we can,” said Winitsky in the news release. “And these stunning new plays are already making a difference. Now we need everyone to come out and help us choose which ones are the most important and the most compelling.”

Once they do, the winner might find a wide reach, getting a workshop reading at the Festival of New Jewish Plays in New York later this year, according to the release. Past finalists and winners have been produced off-Broadway and at theaters across the U.S., as well as stages in Canada, Mexico and Israel.

“Having the support and community that the JPP offered last year has been a lifeline. It meant so much to have my play read across the country, putting me in conversation with a network of new friends. I’m very honored and deeply grateful, as the JPP continues to support me in finding the best future for my play,” said Deborah Zoe Laufer, whose play “The Last Yiddish Speaker” won the contest two years ago.

Tickets for the Philadelphia event are free, thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. They can be reserved on theweitzman.org.

jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com