Each year, Philadelphia Young Playwrights invites students to submit their plays to the Annual Playwriting Festival. Plays are considered by the Literary Committee—a collection of nearly 70 program alumni, artists, staff, teachers, and others—who read and write individualized responses to every play. Literary Committee members recommend a number of outstanding plays to be considered for further consideration by two additional groups of readers, Pre-Final Committee and Final Committee.
At Final Committee, the panel chooses winning plays, including those that will be produced for public presentations. Those students are invited to continue to revise and develop their plays in partnership with theater professionals for production, a series we call the Play Development Series. Altogether, the process looks like this:
Questions? Answers.
Who does all that reading & writing?
The Literary Committee! More than 70 artists, staff, students, and others are assigned a group of plays. They read them and write one page responses to each playwrights.
How do they know what to write?
PYP provides all Literary Committee Members with a packet of information including a rubric to guide their process, questions to consider while reading student plays, and sample responses.
