WPF 2025: Light Up The Dark!

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!”

More Info…

Submissions for WPF 2025: Light Up the Darkness are open through March 7th, 2025, for writers of all ages who have participated in any Writopia program—workshops, private sessions, Write to Recognition, and partnership programs offsite—within the past year.

The festival will run from Wednesday, June 4th to Sunday, June 8th, 2025.

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 on West 28th Street.

Lighting

Please write plays that utilize lighting

Flashlight
Regular Lamp
Upright Lamp
Christmas Lights
Candles (they’ll be fake candle)
A Spotlight

Length

10 minute plays
- (If writing in a lot dialogue, think 8-10 pages, if your play has a lot of monologues, think 5 pages)

Number of Actors

3 actors Max!
- (This means you could have one or two actors playing multiple roles. But make sure that there are high stakes between the characters. You could also think about having one central character going through a crisis, and two actors might play multiple roles surrounding that central character. The key is — 3 Actors Max, and HIGH STAKES for the play.)
- Please include a character breakdown at the top of your play!

Genre

The play can be any genre—comedy, drama, horror, polemic, tragedy, historical, docudrama, solo play, interactive, sci-fi, musical, or anything you dream up.

Format

There is no standard playwriting format in the world of theater. Feel free to use the Writopia Lab Playwriting Format as a model, if that works for you.

Narrators

There can be no narrator of the play who is not emotionally invested in the story. (i.e. Ramona can tell her story to the audience, but an unnamed narrator cannot tell her story to the audience.)

Who Can Submit?

Submissions for the Worldwide Play Festival are open to all playwrights between the ages of 6 and 18 who have participated in a Writopia program—workshops, private sessions, W2R, retreats, camps, school/organization partnerships, etc.—over the past year.

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 will receive written feedback. (Everyone gets some thoughts back about their play. We appreciate your submitting.)