Eugene O'Neill Theater Center Seeks Original Student Plays for Young Playwrights Festival

The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center is now accepting scripts for its 13th annual Young Playwrights Festival to be held May 11-13, 2018. Applications are due by February 13, 2018. A world-renowned developer of new work and new artists for the American theater, the O'Neill is the winner of two Tony Awards and National Medal of Arts. Employing the signature "O'Neill process," the festival provides professional support to develop original one-act plays written by local middle and high school students.

Selected students can expect a rigorous exploration of their work, assistance from professional artists, full rehearsals with their artistic team, and opportunities to revise their play. The Festival concludes with a script-in-hand public reading of the students' work on Sunday, May 13, 2018.

Young Playwrights spend a weekend at the O'Neill with a dedicated creative team - director, dramaturg, and actors - comprised of National Theater Institute alumni helping them to stage their plays. The development process draws on principles and techniques used during the O'Neill's renowned National Playwrights Conference. With these methods, the students hone their work, furthering it from the initial isolation of writing to the collaborative process involved in making their script into a living, breathing play.

"For me, there are few things more exciting than seeing the words of a playwright brought to life," says the O'Neill's Director of Education Sophia Chapadjiev, "Plays are meant to be performed which is why one of our goals at the Young Playwrights Conference is to enable young playwrights to realize their vision."

Plays will be selected on a competitive basis. Submission requirements:

• Students must be between the ages of 12-18.

• Students must submit 10-15 pages of original work.

• An application with a completed checklist and two copies of the script must be received by February 13, 2018.

• Only the work of those able to attend the entire festival, May 11 - 13, 2018, will be considered.

Submissions should be sent to:

Young Playwrights Festival

305 Great Neck Road

Waterford, CT 06385

To receive an application, or for more information about YPF, please visit www.theoneill.org/professional-development-and-education/ypf/ or contact Sophia Chapadjiev, Festival Director, at sophia@theoneill.org.

About the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center:

The O'Neill is the country's preeminent organization dedicated to the development of new works and new voices for the American theater. Founded in 1964, and named in honor of Eugene O'Neill, four-time Pulitzer Prize-winner and America's only playwright to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Launchpad of the American theater, the O'Neill has been home to more than 1,000 new works for the stage and thousands more emerging artists. Scores of projects developed at the O'Neill have gone on to full production at theaters around the world. O'Neill programs include the National Playwrights Conference, National Music Theater Conference, National Critics Institute, National Puppetry Conference, Cabaret & Performance Conference, and National Theater Institute - which offers six credit-earning undergraduate training programs. In addition, the O'Neill owns and operates the Monte Cristo Cottage as a museum open to the public. The O'Neill is the recipient of two Tony Awards and National Medal of Arts. www.theoneill.org.

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