Young Playwrights Festival XXIV Runs May 9-27

Young Playwrights Inc. will present the 24th annual Young Playwrights Festival, a three-week engagement of new plays by writers aged 18 or younger, premiering May 9-27, 2006, at Off-Broadway's Peter Jay Sharp Theatre (416 West 42nd Street). Opening Night is set for Wednesday, May 17.

Young Playwrights Festival XXIV is an evening of three fully-staged one-act plays. The three plays were selected from over 1,000 entries submitted to the Young Playwrights Festival National Playwriting Competition. These include FreezeFrame, written by Deborah Yarchun and directed by Richard Caliban; Los Angeles Lullaby, written by Kit Steinkellner and directed by Valentina Fratti; and Suicide Club, written by Miriam Eichenbaum and also directed by Fratti.

"Set at a Philadelphia college, Yarchun's FreezeFrame is an electrically-charged techno-pop drama that focuses on how to freeze a man's soul and the apocalyptic reversal of the earth's magnetic poles," state press notes. "In Steinkellner's Los Angeles Lullaby, a young woman struggling to mother her new baby girl finds herself becoming a little girl again when forced to confront her brilliant – yet emotionally absent – father. In Eichenbaum's Suicide Club, after an uncharacteristic attempt at suicide in the school bathroom, Brigitte – the witty 'good girl' – ends up in the contradictory world of the so-called 'bad girls' in a Catholic girls' school."

The festival will feature performances by Janine Barris, Laura Breckenridge, Teddy Eck, Mike Hartman, James Miles, Nathalie Nicole Paulding, Patricia Randell and Jedadiah Schultz.

The design team for the Young Playwrights Festival XXIV includes Brett W. Reynolds (sets), Joanne M. Haas (costumes), Mike Riggs (lighting), Jill B.C. DuBoff (sound) and Dustin O'Neill (projections).

Founded by Stephen Sondheim, Young Playwrights Inc. is the only professional theater in the U.S. devoted solely to writers under the age of 18. Noteworthy alums of the Festival include Kenneth Lonergan, Rebecca Gilman, Jonathan Marc Sherman and Kate Moira Ryan.

Young Playwrights Festival XXIV is dedicated to the memory of playwright Wendy Wasserstein. Wendy was a devoted YPI board member for more than 20 years – a wonderful supporter of the theater and a spirited advocate for an entire generation of young writers.

Young Playwrights Festival XXIV plays 18 performances, May 9-27, with shows Tuesday through Saturday evenings at 8 p.m. and Saturday matinees at 2 p.m.

Ticketsare $35 each and are now available through TicketCentral.com at (212) 279-4200, or in person at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre Box Office. Student rush tickets are available for $10 and can be purchased at the Box Office 30 mintues before each performance.

For more information, visit www.youngplaywrights.org.