Young Playwrights for Change Anthologies
The Young Playwrights for Change anthologies feature the plays of regional winners from the Young Playwrights for Change Program (now administered by AATE).
Young Playwrights for Change is a national middle school playwriting competition, originally co-launched by TYA/USA, and now run by the American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE). The mission of Young Playwrights for Change is to produce meaningful conversations that will ripple across our nation to provoke change. The goal is to spark conversation and discussion throughout classrooms, schools, and communities.
The plays from the first two cycles of Young Playwrights for Change are now available to purchase. See below for information on these anthologies.
Year 2 Anthology
The seventeen middle school playwrights in this collection participated in workshops on the local and regional level and proved that the deceptively simple question we asked – What is Family? – is actually quite complicated. As Adam Burke writes in the Introduction, “It was fascinating to see the question addressed from a variety of social, cultural, and biological perspectives in these plays. As I read the many wonderful plays by these brave new playwrights it became clear that there isn’t one simple answer to this question.” Each play was submitted to the national contest. The winner and runners-up—Life Goes On by Alexia Teagon McCarty, Who Is My Family? by Daniel Coppinger, and Speaking of Sexuality by Alexandria Smith open the collection, making way for all or our talented playwrights.
Year 1 Anthology
The fourteen middle school playwrights in this collection participated in workshops on the local and regional level and, as Mary Hall Surface writes in the Introduction, “have harnessed their imaginations to create places that are achingly real, as well as wildly imaginative.” Each play was submitted to the national contest. The winning and runner-up plays–Michael Ford’s Nerdy Nate and the Anti-Bullying Quest and Chloe Rust’s Bullies Anonymous–open the collection, making way for all of our talented playwrights.
