Story highlights The American Shakespeare Center is looking for new plays inspired by Shakespeare classics

Winning playwrights will get $25,000 and the opportunity to produce their play

(CNN) Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears -- and your Shakespearean fan fiction.

Do you want to become a modern-day Shakespeare, or at least the next best thing? Do you have a great idea for a play about, say, Hamlet's evil twin?

The American Shakespeare Center, a regional theater company in Staunton, Virginia, is looking to stage new plays as companion pieces to William Shakespeare's classics -- all 38 of them.

"We want to open the playhouse up to the next generation of the world's greatest playwrights by having them write pieces that vibe off of, or are inspired by, each of Shakespeare's plays," Artistic Director Jim Warren announced on the center's website.

The project, called " Shakespeare's New Contemporaries ," is open to all aspiring playwrights and will run for the next 20 years.

Read More