PlayGround’s 2018 Young Playwrights Contest Asks Teens to Think Big!

PlayGround is pleased to announce the topic and guidelines for our 10th anniversary Young Playwrights Project contest. The topic for 2018 is “Tall Tales” and the submission guidelines can be found here. Submissions will be due by 11:59 PM on April 9, 2018 and finalists will be announced on or before April 23rd.

High school students from the Bay Areas are invited to submit original short scripts inspired by the assigned topic, Tall Tales. “Through the Young Playwrights Project, PlayGround and Bay Area high schools partner to enable young writers to find their own expressive voice through the creation, development, and production of short plays,” stated PlayGround Artistic Director Jim Kleinmann. A unique opportunity for creatively-inclined high school students to experiment with writing for theatre, the finalists gain confidence and accomplishment from seeing their works staged by Bay Area theatre professionals, alongside the adult professional playwrights at Best of PlayGround.

To assist students in preparing for this year’s contest, we are reigniting our school education program by offering playwriting master classes for schools across the Bay Area. With this revival we are working to support local high school dramatists through a limited number of complimentary all-inclusive single session classes for interested schools, followed by the opportunity to schedule additional classes at a discount. Led by Some of the Bay Area’s leading new playwrights, these classes are designed to complement existing creative writing education within the schools, while helping students become more familiar with playwriting and the theatrical short form. Our overall goal is to empower young students to explore and develop their creative voices.

The masterclasses can be scheduled with us anytime between now and March 31st. You contact PlayGround Artistic Director Jim Kleinmann at jim@box5865.temp.domains to book your free class today.  Please feel free to reach out should you have any questions regarding this year’s Young Playwrights Project or Contest.

Additionally, PlayGround will host free in-house workshops on February 24th from 12PM-2PM and again on March 3rd from 12PM-2PM at PlayGround’s PlaySpace in Berkeley. You can register for these workshops at https://tickets.playground-sf.org/TheatreManager/1/login&event=137. 

The winning plays will receive a professional public staged readings of their winning short works as part of the Best of PlayGround Festival at PlayGround’s San Francisco home, Potrero Stage From May 17-20.

To find out more about the Young Playwrights Project you can follow this link: https://playground-sf.org//youngplaywrights/