39th Annual Young Playwright’s Festival

Each year, we invite young playwrights across the state of Maryland to submit their 10 page plays to our YPF Open Call. We select six plays to be professionally produced by Baltimore Center Stage. The playwrights of the six plays are paired with a mentor to help them refine their plays before they’re submitted to the creative team. Join us for our annual YPF performance on May 18th at 6pm in the Pearlstone Theater at Baltimore Center Stage.

YPF 2023-2024 theme: The Tales We Tell

How would you tell a tale? As you bring your world to life, who dwells in your mystical world? How would a world full of magic and grandeur sustain itself? From the grotesque and the dubious to the majestic and enchanting – how do these characters discover purpose and come together to achieve the unimaginable? Or, are there some problems that simply cannot be solved? What does it look like to consider how conflict either refines or destroys a character? In what ways do these worlds mimic our own? Design a fairytale of your very own exploring where contrasting powers, energies and magic collide to create your play.

Art by: Emily Leary

Special thanks to