WPF 2025: Light Up The Dark!

 The application window for our 2025 festival has closed.

It’s dark out there. Through these winter months, the sun goes down early. Through challenges, we may not immediately see the light. But as Bob Marley tells us, we have the chance to "Light Up the Dark!"

So for this year’s Worldwide Plays Festival, we task our playwrights to spend these winter months exploring Light and Darkness, Shadow and Shine, both literally and thematically.

Write plays that take place in the sun or take place in the shadows.

Write plays that explore the darkest feelings or situations and find the light shining through.

As songwriter Leonard Cohen once wrote, “there’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in!”

Each year hundreds of our writers submit 10-minute plays to this exciting festival. Each submission receives feedback from us. In the end, thirty will receive staged readings read by professional actors, and ten will receive full productions—that’s right, for the first time since before the pandemic, our play festival will include productions of plays with actors off book with set, lights, and sound. 

The festival will take place June 4th through 8th at the TADA! Theater in New York.

Winner Will Receive

• 10 plays will be chosen for full productions at the TADA! Theater between June 4th and June 8th (professional actors with memorized lines and staging and design)
• 30 plays will be selected for readings (professional actors reading from your script)
• All plays submitted receive written feedback. 

WINNERS

Full Productions

Saturday, June 7th at 7 PM

• A Forever Kinda Thing by Emma Wolff, Age: 15
  • Instructor: [None listed]
• A Tangled Mind by Wyatt Foster, Age: 18
  • Instructor: Matthew Jellison
• Redshift by Madeleine Ford, Age: 18
  • Instructors: Rita Feinstein, Malcolm Knowles
• The Last Supper by Aravah Chaiken, Age: 18
  •  Instructors: Lizz Mangan, Alice Charlotte Bethke, Jem Werner
• You're in My Sun by Sammy Shames, Age: 19 
  • Instructor: Léna Roy
• She Jumps Right Off the Page by Mika Higgins-Woo, Age: 17
  • Instructor: Kendra Jones

Sunday, June 8th at 1 PM

• Take Your Time and Process by Jada Green, Age: 9
  • Instructor: Danielle Sheeler
• You Drive Me Nuts by Oliver Eggert and Leela Fleck, Age: 12 
  • Instructor: Samantha Schnell
• Green Light in the Basement by Anahita Surrena and Camille Driskell, Age: 12 
  • Instructor: Di Jayawickrema
• There is a light; she doesn't want it by Lily Kulnis, Age: 12
  • Instructor: Maria Elisa Schmidt
• Bus Stop by Jackson Preston-Werner, Age: 13 
  • Instructor: Jem Werner

FINALISTS

Readings 

Thursday, June 5th at 7 PM

• Buried by Ananya Shah, Age: 17
  • Instructor: [None listed]
• Pieces From Last Night by Maxine Wanderer, Age: 18
  • Instructor: Rebecca Wallace-Segall
• Revenge is a Dish Best Served with a Toast by Eleanor Lawton Flatters, Age: 18
  • Instructor: Rafaela Bassili
• If Projections Could Talk They Would Say I'm Great by Madison Dorsey, Age: 19
  • Instructor: [None listed]
• The Good Fight by Iago Macknik-Conde, Age: 19
  • Instructors: Léna Roy, Janelle Williams, Lizz Mangan
• Searching in the Dark by Naomi Jeske, Age: 17
  • Instructors: Léna Roy, Lael O'Shaughnessy
• The Lamb by Angelika Rubenstein, Age: 17
  • Instructors: Matthew Jellison, Kaley Mamo

Friday, June 6th at 6 PM

• The City That Sometimes Sleeps by Sienna Sachs Beck, Age: 13
  • Instructor: Amy Dupcak
• Strong Enough to Stand by Sophie Noble-Carvin, Age: 13
  • Instructor: Tasnim Hussain
• POV: Camping by Eleanor Pitchal, Age: 14
  • Instructor: Alice Charlotte Bethke
• Ashes Of The Braided Beards by Kai Bansal, Age: 14
  • Instructor: Jane Young
• The Ghost Light by Henry Lomma, Age: 15
  • Instructor: Léna Roy

Friday, June 6th at 7:30 PM

• Do You Think She Hates Me? by Claire Breslow, Age: 16
  • Instructors: Léna Roy, Jane Young
• Spotlight by Beatrix Gruver, Age: 16
  • Instructor: Léna Roy
• Guest Star by Marie Kim, Age: 16
  • Instructor: Korama Danquah
• Opening Night by Beatrix Gruver, Age: 16
  • Instructor: Léna Roy
• Monsoon Servant by Gabrielle Karp, Age: 13
  • Instructor: [Not listed]
• Winged Embers by Alexandra Steyn, Age: 16
  • Instructor: Sophie Marie Lee and Lily Gellman

Saturday, June 7th at 12 PM

• Mystery in the Creek by Keira Osorio, Age: 10
  • Instructor: Tom Storch
• Into the Wools by Camilla Leung, Age: 12
  • Instructors: Ella Goldblum, Lizz Mangan
• The Only Light by Alexandra Boryshansky and Lilia Ma, Age: 10
  • Instructor: Alice Charlotte Bethke
• Christmas by Jiawen Cheng, Age: 10
  • Instructor: Lael O'Shaughnessy
• Romi and Juliette by Vivian Pitchal, Age: 11
  • Instructor: Alice Charlotte Bethke
• Devil and Angel by Matilda Grau and Abigail Chan, Age: 11
  • Instructors: Rafaela Bassili, Finn Mott
• The Blackout by Quinn Koester, Age: 11
  • Instructors: Malcolm Knowles, Emi Shapiro

Saturday, June 7th at 2 PM

• Black Rain by Parker Allen, Age: 13
  • Instructors: Jane Young, Claire Breslow
• Let Me Go by Sarah Froman, Age: 15
  • Instructor: Allie Hoback
• Promise to a Dead Man by Viraaj Raofield, Age: 18
  • Instructors: Rita Feinstein, Liz Lawson, Jordan Casomar
• Spotlight by Charlotte Long, Age: 18
  • Instructors: Paulina Tesnow, Sophie Marie Lee
• Being Seen by Bee Kanofsky, Age: 19
  • Instructors: Léna Roy, Rita Feinstein
• This Obsession by Maia Kupchan, Age: 13
  • Instructors: Liz Lawson, Rita Feinstein

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

• Uni's World by Parker Koester, Age: 9
  • Instructors: Malcolm Knowles, Emi Shapiro
• Still Kicking by Mina Weiss, Age: 9
  • Instructors: Alice Charlotte Bethke, Elsa Bermudez
• The chicken! [I thought we were going to say that at the same time.] by Neda Nouri, Age: 10
  • Instructor: Jane Young
• Mystery in the Creek by Keira Osorio, Age: 10
  • Instructor: Tom Storch
• Intergenerational Beef by Zoe Vaughan, Age: 11
  • Instructors: Rafaela Bassili, Finn Mott
• Foster Forests by Daphne Wiener, Age: 11
  • Instructor: Kendra Jones
• The Extinguished Fire by Dean Kedem, Age: 13
  • Instructor: Kaley Mamo
• I'm Back by Hazel Everitt, Age: 13
  • Instructor: Paulina Tesnow
• Flicker in a Battlefield by Mayla Chen, Age: 13
  • Instructors: Rafaela Bassili, Niki Fakhoori
• Knights of the Insta by Ella Buchner, Age: 14
  • Instructor: Ally Holback
• The Edification of the Primal Folly of Man by Rohan Tatlow, Age: 14
  • Instructors: Rita Feinstein, Liz Lawson
• Purpose by Nova Macknik-Conde, Age: 14
  • Instructor: Reuben Sack (also participated in the ESPI program)
• Spotlight by Serena Lin, Age: 15
  • Instructor: Joey Del Deo
• Dinolo and Sauralet by Leena Rajkotia, Age: 15
  • Instructors: Rita Feinstein, Liz Lawson
• The Night the Lights Went Out by Sandy Stern, Age: 15
  • Instructor: Rita Feinstein
• My Light by Edy Myers, Age: 16
  • Instructors: Paulina Tesnow, Sophie Marie Lee
• Lights Out by Gordon Petrik, Age: 16
  • Instructor: Amy Dupcak
• Nine-And-A-Half-Nervous by Mika Higgins-Woo, Age: 17
  • Instructor: Kendra Jones
• Passers By by Mika Higgins-Woo, Age: 17
  • Instructor: Kendra Jones