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About the Festival

The Young Playwrights Festival invites a cohort of students to spend a weekend at the O'Neill with a dedicated creative team—director, dramaturg, and actors—to help them develop their short plays. Students receive a rigorous exploration of their work guided by professional artists as well as a script-in-hand public reading of their new play. The majority of the festival's creative team are alumni from the O'Neill's National Theater Institute. With this approach, the young playwrights hone their piece, furthering it from the initial isolation of writing to the collaborative process involved in making their script into a living, breathing play. Additional students are invited as Guest Playwrights to spend the weekend observing the development processes, attending playwriting workshops and rehearsals, and hearing their own scripts read aloud.

PUBLIC PERFORMANCE

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The Young Playwrights Festival performance features five plays by middle and high school students presented as staged readings. The 2026 play selections are as follows: â€‹

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  • The Art of Making Tea by Erci Cai; Groton School, 11th grade – Groton, MA

  • Killing Saving the Evil Wizard by Marcus Lowy; Old Saybrook HS, 11th grade - Old Saybrook, CT

  • Interlude by Henry Nazarian; Clark Lane MS, 8th grade – Waterford, CT

  • Neverland by Yune "Sophie" Park; Choate Rosemary Hall, 11th grade – Wallingford, CT

  • Variations on Easter Sunday by Julia Price; North Shore HS, 11th grade – Glen Head, NY

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Tickets for this event are pay-what-you-can and can be reserved online. If tickets sell out online, a standby line will be use to fill any open seats.

May 17 5:00pm

We also commend the following students for being selected as Guest Playwrights and will attend the festival to participate in workshops and hear readings of their own scripts:​

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  • Mind Games by Piper Harnois; Groton Middle School, 8th grade - Groton, CT

  • Compliance by Adelina Lee; Tenafly Middle School, 8th grade - Tenafly, NJ

  • Acting by Callan Scott; Washington Montessori School, 8th grade - Sharon, CT

  • The City That Never Sleeps by Henry Steinhaus; Clark Lane Middle School, 8th grade - Waterford, CT

  • The Plant's Shadow by Agbakin Biaou; Success Academy Hudson Yards Middle School, 7th grade - New York, NY

  • The Super Secret Detective Club by Clare Lopez; Old Saybrook Middle School, 7th grade - Old Saybrook, CT

  • Radegundis by Caitlin Gilmore; Groton Middle School, 8th grade - Groton, CT

  • Unimpossible Tunnels  by Zoë Palazzo; Clark Lane Middle School, 8th grade - Waterford, CT

  • Cat's Cradle by Ella Taft; The Brearley School, 11th grade - New York, NY

  • Thank You Ten by Wyatt Krueger; Horace Mann School, 11th grade - Bronx, NY

  • Foam, Fluff, & Psychological Stuff  by Addison Parlier; Alexander Early College, 11th grade - Taylorsville, NC

  • We All Die Twice by Vera Ross; Robert E. Fitch Senior High School, 10th grade - Groton, CT

  • Who Would Believe Sadie Kessler?  by Emma Wolff; Rye Country Day School, 9th grade - Rye, NY

  • Eight Dollars and Thirty-Two Cents by Sarah Froman; Sidwell Friends School, 9th grade - Washington, D.C.

  • On The Record  by Reese Naughton; Southington High School & Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, 10th grade - Southington, CT

  • Fever Dream by Silver Montieth; New London High School Multi-Magnet Campus, 10th grade - New London, CT

JOIN US THIS SUMMER AS WE WRITE THE NEXT ACT OF THE AMERICAN THEATER.

Season overview >

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