The 12th Annual Young Playwrights Festival
Ages: High school
Michigan high school students are invited to write and submit one-act
scripts to a juried competition. Six scripts will be selected as
finalists to be performed at Wharton Center by MSU Theatre Department
students. All finalists will receive awards.
Registration
forms and student packets are available for download
below:
What makes a good play?
To help you answer this question, you can read ideas from people
affiliated with the Young Playwrights Festival below. Additionally,
you may view the Young Playwrights Slideshow
for more information (click the presentation to advance slides (FLASH).
The best plays have something to say. The best plays reveal something that we may already know but in a unique way or with a different slant. Plays have a chance to move, repel or unite audiences. A play with a clear purpose, a clear premise, a clear message is always the best for me.
Playwrights have a chance to illuminate whatever moves or angers them. Playwrights can always look for inspiration in their own lives, but they have a responsibility to shape these events into a unique message. Before you put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) know what you want to say.
Robert J. Roznowski
Professor of Theatre/Acting, Michigan State University
YPF Semifinalist Faculty Mentor
A play -- short or long, poetry or prose -- has a start-up, a setup, a beginning or an exposition; then it has a middle part or complication; and then a resolution and a climax. It is a story about human people who may take some interesting forms, told in dialogue, which may be accompanied by music. When the story and the characters and the idea mesh they excite an emotional gut level response that is magical.
Frank Rutledge
Professor of Theatre, MSU
Head, YPF Script Selection
The key to a good piece of theatre is integrity – that all of the various pieces of character, plot, structure, language and the central idea all fit together in a meaningful way. Oftentimes in playwriting, something is missing with regard to integrity – the plot doesn’t quite work out or a character uses language that doesn’t fit them. Whenever I read or see a really good play it is because all of the stuff of the play hangs together and sticks. In addition, this idea of integrity keeps you inside the world of the play and you don’t get taken out of the moment. Integrity makes a play live and lets you live inside it.
Probably the most important element of this integrity is the plot. I call the plot “the way the story ticks.” When the plot works, usually the play works too. All kinds of plots can work — funny ones, quirky ones, family ones, scary ones, even stupid ones from time to time. The key to a good plot is that each action in the play logically follows upon the previous action. Again, it sticks together and you don’t find yourself saying, “that story just didn’t interest me.” A good plot will interest you because it all fits together.
I have to say that plots don’t have to be logical in the sense of time. We all know this by now after seeing films like The Matrix and Memento – two plots that jump all over the map of time and memory. But the reason the plots in those films work is because each event logically follows the previous one within the world of the play. My favorite stage play that jumps around in time and memory is Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie because all the characters and events logically stick together even though we’re inside a character’s mind and memory.
And, finally, we have to acknowledge the importance of character. Good strong characters make good plays. They take actions and say things that make us sit up and think or laugh or writhe in emotion. We want to listen to them, not necessarily because they are “right” or because they are teaching us something, but because they’re interesting. They might come from the situations of your life and reality, or they might leap from the imagination or from the inspiration of art. The key to great characters is that they fit into that plot with integrity. They take actions and use language that fits with the plot.
I’ve worked with many playwrights over the years and all of them have taught me that good writing connects people. It gives us a reason to converse and take action ourselves. It changes us. So, be bold and brave and write a play that has integrity.
Dr. Stephanie Sandberg
Professor of Theatre, Calvin College
YPF Guest Responder to Public Performance
