Bay Area playwrights incubator PlayGround announced today the 2012 Young Playwrights Project Contest, inviting Bay Area high school students to submit original ten-page plays inspired by the recently-selected topic, “BAY AREA STORIES.”

A PlayGround review panel will select four student scripts to be presented with professional actors and directors as part of the 16th annual Best of PlayGround Festival at Thick House in May 2012.

“Through the Young Playwrights Project, PlayGround and Bay Area high schools partner to enable young writers to find their own expressive voice through the creation, development, and production of short plays,” stated PlayGround Artistic Director Jim Kleinmann.

With a generous planning grant from the California Arts Council Artists-in-Schools program in 2007, PlayGround began taking its unique playwright development efforts into Bay Area high schools as part of the PlayGround Young Playwrights Project.

This year marks the fourth year of the Bay Area-wide Young Playwrights Project Contest.

PlayGround and Bay Area high schools partner to enable young writers to find their own expressive voice through the creation, development, and production of short plays

“We are excited to open the PlayGround process and particularly the PlayGround Festival – our celebrated annual showcase for the Bay Area’s best new writers – to Bay Area high school students and look forward, in turn, to sharing their work with Bay Area audiences and theatre-makers,” added PlayGround Education Coordinator & Company Member Eric Fraisher Hayes.

High school students from the Bay Area nine counties are invited to submit original short scripts inspired by the assigned topic by the extended deadline of Monday, April 23, 2012 deadline . The same topic, BAY AREA STORIES, was also assigned to PlayGround’s professional writers pool members for the March 19 round of Monday Night PlayGround in residence at Berkeley Rep.

Past Young Playwrights Project finalists include: Alona Bach (Berkeley High ’11), Caety Klingman (Miramonte High ’11), and Hannah Sears (Urban School ’12).

Young Playwrights Project Contest

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Monday, April 23, 2pm (NEW DEADLINE)