Playwrights Theatre Accepting Submissions to the 30th Annual New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest

Playwrights Theatre is currently accepting submissions for the 30th Annual New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest. Plays are accepted in the following divisions: Elementary (grades 4-6), Junior High (grades 7-9) and High School (grades 10-12). Interested young playwrights must submit their plays online at www.njypf.org. High School plays must be received no later than 11:59pm on January 14, 2013. Elementary and Junior High School entries must be received no later than 11:59pm on January 15, 2013. For complete details and submission guidelines, visit www.njypf.org, or contact Jim DeVivo, Direction of Education at973-514-1787 X14 or njypf@ptnj.org, or visit the New Jersey Young Playwrights Blog at http://njyoungplaywrights.blogspot.com

There may be up to three winners in the Elementary, Junior High, and High School division and High School winners receive a New Jersey Governor’s Award in Arts Education, cosponsored by the New Jersey Arts Education Partnership and the New Jersey Department of Education.

For over 30 years, the New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest has been deepening the writing experience for young writers by providing entrants with detailed feedback from theatre professionals about their play. The New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival selects plays from over 400 submissions and presents them as staged reading with professional actors and directors. Selected playwrights meet with their director/dramaturg to discuss the play and work on possible revisions. Winning plays will be presented during the New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival annually held in May in collaboration with Premiere Stages at Kean University.

Two former New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest winners, Dailyn Rodriguez and Alec Strum, have continued their writing careers.

Dailyn Rodriguez, received the New Jersey Governor’s Award in Arts Education for her plays A Woman, A Bathroom, A Dream (1991) and Dirty Laundry (1992) while attending Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood, NJ. Playwrights Theatre produced both plays for the New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival and Baker’s Plays later published the scripts in an anthology titled Throwing off the Covers, which includes two addition plays by Rodriguez. Rodriguez received a BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU where she received the John Golden Award in Playwriting and the New York Company Picture Award for screenwriting. She also received a Walt Disney Studios Fellowship Award in 2001. Rodriguez is a television writer, editor, and producer who has worked on such shows as George Lopez, 90210, In Plain Sight, and Ugly Betty for which she received a Writers Guild Award in 2007.

Alec Strum a graduate of Bergen County Academies and Middlebury College received a New Jersey Governor’s Award in Arts Education in 2002 when his play,Doghouse, was chosen as one of the winning scripts. Strum published three plays for young audiences with Pioneer Drama: Big Bad, The Big Bad Musical, and The Southfield Stories and is currently the Literary Assistant at Playwrights Horizons and was the assistant director for Roundabout Theatre Company’s Broadway production of After Miss Julie. Additionally, Strum is a co-founder and Producing Artistic Director of Down Payment Productions, a “non-profit theatrical Production Company committed to cultivating the next generation of American theater artists and audiences.”

For more information about the New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival, Playwrights Theatre’s Creative Arts Academy Fall Classes or Playwrights Theatre’s New Jersey Writers Project, please visit www.ptnj.org or call (973) 514-1787.

Playwrights Theatre Creative Arts Academy teaches classes year-round for children, teens and adults. The Creative Arts Academy is committed to nurturing independent thinking, artistic and personal development through the literary and performing arts. At the Creative Arts Academy, students are part of a community where self-expression and creativity thrive and every person is a valuable member of the whole. Playwrights Theatre’s Creative Arts Academy strives for artistic excellence while emphasizing the creative process, both of which are vital to the personal, social and academic evolution of students of all ages. Creative Arts Academy instructors are highly experienced professional artists who are perceptive and dynamic in the classroom. Creative Arts Academy teachers are committed to developing their own skills, as well as those of their students, and to refining their artistry through continued practice and education. For additional information or to register, visit www.ptnj.org or call (973) 514-1787, ext. 21.