The Young Playwrights Festival is our longest running learning program that encourages expression and creativity in students across the state. Each spring, we invite and receive hundreds of play submissions from participants in our residencies, and many more from students across Maryland. Playwrights in grades K-12 submit their short plays, and each year up to six plays are chosen to receive a professional production produced by Baltimore Center Stage. All YPF playwrights whose work is chosen for a full production will receive dramaturgical mentorship to help them refine and edit their scripts before the plays are performed onstage.
This year’s theme is Hear the World, Heal the World: a hopeful imagination on the current world we live in, the many worlds we create, and the hope of a better future. This is a call for young writers in Maryland to take note of the world around them (or the ones they imagine) and write out their stories imagining ways to respond to what they hear. When you listen to the world, is it screaming, crying, whispering, or singing? Who do you think is listening? What elements would you identify as essential in the recipe for healing the world? What does healing look like to you?
This season, we are expanding our submission categories for the Young Playwrights Festival program so that young writers of different mediums can express their creativity in response to our open call. Young writers are called to respond to this year’s Open Call by submitting either an original 10-page/minute play OR an original 3-5 minute poem/spoken word piece responding to this theme. In addition to our 6 winning plays, 4 young poets will be selected to read/perform their winning poem during our festival.
CALL FOR STUDENT ARTISTS!
Baltimore Center Stage is seeking local student art submissions for this year’s 2025-2026 Youth Season. The winning artworks will be the official look of the 41st BCS Young Playwrights Festival!
This year’s 41st Young Playwrights Festival Competition will lead the journey with the theme: “Hear the World, Heal the World”. This statewide youth competition is a celebration of artistry and the tradition of storytelling and we want the power of this theme to inspire you! What messages do you hear from the world? How can our stories heal the world?
Create 1 or 2 original pieces that embody and represent:
The Theme of this year’s Young Playwrights Festival Competition: “Hear the World, Heal the World”
Let your imagination fly in creating the artwork for this year’s CAMP BCS: a summer filled with theater, arts, and everything in between.
The top 3 finalists will be featured on Baltimore Center Stage’s Social Media.. The chosen featured artist(s) will win a $150 cash prize for each piece (or $300 for both!), will be featured on our website, and have the opportunity to showcase their portfolio(s) at Baltimore Center Stage.
The Young Playwrights Festival (YPF) is a historic education program at BCS. The YPF Residency is a component of YPF, where one of our Teaching Artists will work hands on with you and your students through a fun and engaging curriculum to assist in the development of literacy, reading, and creative writing skills. Through 8 sessions, typically running the length of one class period, our Teaching Artists will work alongside you to help your students write their very own short plays.
Through the generosity of BCS’s donors and various grants, we are able to offer up to ten free “In-School” Residencies. In the scheduling process, we prioritize Title 1 schools in Baltimore City, and those that are explicitly set up to serve students with disabilities. We will be adapting our YPF curriculum and offering it for a free download online as well. Teachers or enterprising students across Maryland can download the curriculum and complete it themselves at their own pace.
For independent and private schools interested in signing up for our YPF In-School Residencies, the cost for one Teaching Artist to set up a residency in your school is $800.
Your residency will only be with your classroom. While the Festival portion of YPF will engage students from different schools, each residency will only include students from your class learning together with your classroom teacher and a BCS Teaching Artist.
Our curriculum works best with class sizes of 20-30 students. While there is no minimum number of students, please note that we are only able to offer about 10 YPF residencies this year, so class sizes will also be a factor in the selection process for school partners.
At this time, we are not able to provide technology to YPF Residency students. We will work with school partners to provide our YPF Residency curriculum through platforms that each classroom is using.
All young playwrights who participate in our residencies will be encouraged to submit their work for consideration in the 40th annual Baltimore Center Stage Young Playwrights Festival. Selected plays will be produced by BCS with professional actors, designers, and directors on May 10, 2025! The submission deadline for this year’s Young Playwrights Festival is February 7th, 2025.
If you’re interested in the Young Playwrights Festival Residency please fill out the residency request form, which you can find here: centerstagemd.wufoo.com/forms/baltimore-center-stage-ypf-residency-202425/
For best consideration, please aim to have your request for a residency to us by September 30, 2024.
This year we will offer 10 free in-school residencies. In the selection process, we prioritize Title 1 Schools, schools in Baltimore City, and schools with whom we’ve partnered in the past. We will also take class size into account when we select school partners for residencies.
All teachers or administrators who apply on behalf of their classroom, will be contacted with regards to the status of their application for a YPF residency.
The deadline for school partners to request a residency is September 30, 2024. The deadline for students to submit plays is February 7th, 2025. The 40th Young Playwrights Festival will take place on May 10, 2025.
Please contact us by email (education@centerstage.org).
We will have a virtual curriculum available for download for you to access and work through independently in your classroom(s). Please contact us at our Education email if you’re interested in receiving this digital version of our curriculum.
Yes! Please remember that the deadline to submit a script is February 7th, 2025.
