THE GINNY PARKER
Young Playwrights Festival
IMPORTANT DATES
February 9: Plays due
March 20: Workshop
April 27: Festival
Every year Syracuse Stage invites Central New York high school students to write original ten-minute plays and other performance pieces for entry into our annual Young Playwrights Festival contest. Our panel of theatre and literary professionals evaluates each student's play. Semifinalists are invited to attend a writing workshop with Syracuse Stage where their plays will be read and critiqued. Finalists will see their plays performed as staged readings by Syracuse University Drama Students.
This event is free and does not require tickets.
VISIT OUR TEACHER HUB
For Lesson Plans, Study Guides and Activities!
2026 WINNERS
Front Row (L to R): Catherine Wells, Zoie VanBeveren, Denise Dima, Jordan Harrington, and Kieghlin Hicks.
Back Row (L to R): London-Lauren Mccutcheon, Aram Sieburg, Halia Dice, Seth Harshbarger, and Ainsley Oliver.
2026 YPF QUOTABLE PLAYWRIGHT
Quiara Alegría Hudes
Quiara Alegría Hudes is the author of eight plays, three musicals, two films, a memoir, and a novel. Her influential stage works include Water By the Spoonful which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and has become a staple of college classrooms, and the global phenomenon In the Heights which received the Tony Award for Best Musical. A daughter of the Puerto Rican diaspora, Hudes now lives in New York.
2008 Broadway production of In the Heights (Joan Marcus)
