What is the NCAA?

The National Collegiate Athletic Association regulates the athletes of 1,268 North American institutions and conferences. It also organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.

The NCAA is divides participating colleges and universities into three divisions (Division I, Division II, and Division III) based on school size, athletic funding, and number of athletic scholarships.

• Both Ohio State University and University of Wisconsin-Madison are Division I schools, with the most sports funding
• The NCAA Bowling Championship, unlike with most sports, has all three Divisions compete together
• The NCAA categorizes bowling as a winter sport. The Championships are held in April

Big 10 Consortium’s New Play Initiative

The Big 10 Schools are united by their large Division 1 sports teams and their geographic location, stretching across the midwest and mid-Atlantic. The Big 10 Consortium actually comprises 14 schools:

• Indiana University
• Michigan State University
• Northwestern University
• Ohio State University
• Pennsylvania State University
• Purdue University
• Rutgers University
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• University of Iowa
• University of Maryland
• University of Michigan
• University of Minnesota
• University of Nebraska–Lincoln
• University of Wisconsin–Madison

This sports consortium has led to corresponding academic consortia between the 14 schools, including the Big 10 Theatre Consortium. In 2014 the Big 10 began a New Play Initiative for female playwrights to create plays with a substantial number of developed young female characters.

Each year the Big 10 commissions one female playwright to create a new work that the schools have the exclusively right to produce for one year, and the right to produce it royalty-free for the first three years.

The works produced by this initiative:

• Good Kids, by Naomi Iizuka – 2014
• Baltimore, by Kirsten Greenidge – 2015
• Twilight Bowl, by Rebecca Gilman – 2016
• Companion Animals, by Madeleine George – 2017