Young Writers Project

Anything, Anyone, Anywhere!

The Seventh Annual Little Festival of the Unexpected Young Writers Project gives high school playwrights the opportunity to be read, seen, and heard by professionals during Portland Stage's annual celebration of new works for the stage. Young writers are invited to explore their imaginations and the theatrical form, and submit original scripts of short plays or monologues to Portland Stage. The deadline for submissions is February 1, 2013.

Selected scripts will be presented as public, staged readings by professional actors in May 2013 during the Little Festival of the Unexpected (LFU) in the Portland Stage Studio Theater. The LFU Young Writers will take part in the festival by attending rehearsals for their script, observing rehearsals of full-length plays in development, and meeting with professional playwrights in residence in Portland during the festival.

SELECTED SCRIPTS FROM THE 2013 YOUNG WRITERS PROJECT

•  The Card by EB Coughlin (Cape Elizabeth)
•  Bayfront by Daniel Belshaw (Durham, NH)
•  To Kill A Mocking Nerd by Ted Burns (Topsham)

The three selected scripts will be read May 14 through May 16 as part of the 24th Annual Little Festival of the Unexpected at Portland Stage Company. Each Young Writers Project script will be presented as a curtain-raiser for one of the three full-length plays being read in the festival.

Performance Schedule (May 14-16, 2013)

Tuesday, May 14th 7:00pm – The Card by EB Coughlin
          (followed by Veils by Tom Coash)

Wednesday, May 15th 7:00pm – Bayfront by Daniel Belshaw
          (followed by The Vikings of Munjoy Hill by Ian MacAllister-McDonald)

Thursday, May 16th 7:00pm – To Kill A Mocking Nerd by Ted Burns
          (followed by Lake Untersee by Joe Waechter)

All Young Writers Project readings will be held in the Studio Theater on the 2nd floor of Portland Stage Company, 25A Forest Avenue.

RESERVATIONS: 
Call the Portland Stage Box Office at 207-774-0465.

Submission Guidelines:

Click here to download the 2013 Young Writers Project brochure
(1.1MB .PDF)  

• Open to all students, grades 9-12.
• Submit a short play or monologue no longer than 10 minutes (test the length of your script by reading it aloud).
• Original work only; adaptations of existing plays, movies, or books will not be accepted.
• Submissions must include a title page with the writer's contact information: name, address, phone number, e-mail address, school, and grade level.
• Submissions must also include a character list for the piece.
• Typed scripts only: no handwritten or otherwise illegible scripts will be accepted.
• If you're looking for information or suggestions on script formatting, we recommend the Drama Workshop's Web site. 

  Young Writers Ian Armony (left) and Josephine Cooper (right) at the 2011 Little Festival of the Unexpected.

Selection Process:

• All submissions will be read and evaluated by Portland Stage Affiliate Artists; local professional actors, directors and playwrights who call Portland Stage their creative home.
• Successful scripts will demonstrate creativity, originality and theatricality - write about anything, anyone, anywhere!
• Portland Stage will announce selected plays here on our website in early April, 2013. All writers who submit a script will be notified by mail of the selection results.

Deadline: The Deadline for the 2013 Young Writers Project has passed. Information on submissions for the 2014 Project will be posted in this space in September.

Submit by mail to: 
PORTLAND STAGE
Attn: 2013 Young Writers Project
P.O. Box 1458
Portland, ME 04104