Layla Kuck, Calee Gardner, Lance Felton,
Annie Sardouk, Katie Calahan, and Adeline Richardson in our 2022 TYA Play Fest Staged Reading of Star Stuff by Kimberlee Stone
Directed by Emilia Sargent
Darren Joseph, Blase Roque, Layla Kuck and
Haley Janeda in our 2022 TYA Play Fest
Staged Reading of The Most Epic Awesomest
Superhero Movie Ever by Matt Henderson
Directed by Hannah Hockman
In this third season of our 2023 TYA Playwrights Festival, ThinkTank Theatre seeks to provide a platform for forward-thinking, diverse voices for Young Adult and Family Audiences.
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Plays selected for our TYA Festival Showcase receive rehearsal with a professional cast and director, providing an opportunity for the playwright to collaborate with other professionals during the development process. The plays are presented semi-staged, script-in-hand for audiences, providing the playwright further opportunity to develop the work, in the presence of our Tampa Bay community. The date for the TYA Festival Showcase is currently set for August 2023. (Exact dates to be confirmed by April 2023). Plays selected for the TYA Festival Showcase are under consideration for full production in a subsequent season with ThinkTank Theatre
Kaylee Tupper Miller
in our 2021 TYA Play Fest
Staged reading of
Year of 13 Moons
by Germaine Shames
Directed by Jesse Juilanna
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Edwin Noah Perez in our
2021 TYA Play Fest
Staged Reading of
Exhibits in the Zoo
by Matt Harmon
Directed by Brendan Ragan
3rd Annual TYA Play Fest!
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At ThinkTank, we make it our mission to produce inspirational, captivating, and forward-thinking professional theatre for Young Adults and Family Audiences. ThinkTank believes young people and family audience material should reflect the world our young people currently experience and, as such, we do not shy away from mature topics and subject matter. Please feel free to submit plays that might fit this genre. Plays with diverse casting, special-needs individuals, and characters of a younger experience (to be played by actors aged 14-18) will be given special consideration. We are not currently accepting submissions of musicals at the festival this year.
Playwrights selected for the workshop process have the option to either travel to Tampa, FL or can join the festival virtually. Those who chose to travel will receive travel and housing to be present for a portion of the Festival Showcase in August. The playwright’s decision to join in-person or virtually will not impact our final play selection. Playwrights selected for the workshop process will also receive a $500 honorarium for their play submission, generously gifted to the 2023 ThinkTank TYA Playwrights Festival by the Gobioff Foundation.
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Submission Guidelines:
- Deadline for submissions: March 15, 2023.
- Deadline for New Dramatists, Agent and PW Center Submissions: April 4th (If submitting past March 15, 2023, please email tyaplayfest@thinktanktya.org to submit).
-Interested in submitting your play for consideration? Please complete this Google Form to upload your play.
We will allow for tagging on NPX and also highly recommend you also submit via google form.
- For Round One, please select a scene or up to 20 pages from the play that you feel best showcases your piece.
- Please also submit a description of the full-length play.
- Plays should have had no prior Florida Professional Productions.
(If the play has had a workshop production, please include this information on your form, as well as information about the company, # of performances, and contact information, if applicable.)
- Playwrights moved into Round Two for TYA Festival Showcase will be contacted by the end of March 2023 to submit the full-length draft of their play. All Playwrights will be contacted by June 15th, regarding their submission.
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CRITERIA
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​Genres: ​adaptation, adventure, biography, comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, fable/folktale, fantasy,
mystery/thriller, parody/spoof, period,
romantic comedy, science fiction, young audiences
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Length: 60-90 minutes, 90 minutes to two hours
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Cast Size: 1–8
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Age Appropriateness: ages 14-17, ages 18 and up
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Unproduced Work Only?: Can not have been produced in Florida
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Playwright Location: United States and Canada
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With generous support from the Arts Council of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners and the Gobioff Foundation, our TYA Playwrights Festival is a developmental program dedicated to providing a working forum for progressive and forward-thinking TYA productions for today’s theaters. Our goal with this program is to select two to four new plays for a collaborative workshop process, with local Tampa Bay Theatre professionals – directors, stage managers, actors and designers, in addition to members of our Young Artists’ Ensemble - the YAE (an auditioned group of high school students from around the Tampa Bay area, who work alongside our professional in an educational apprenticeship program). We are planning for a brief rehearsal period of 3 or 4 rehearsals, allowing time for playwrights to hear and adapt their work within the rehearsal process. The festival will culminate in a presentation of these works for the general public as part of the TYA Festival Showcase, giving ThinkTank and Tampa Bay audiences larger exposure to new works, as well as offering the playwrights an opportunity to get feedback from the audience during the development process.
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Questions? Email our Festival Director Sadie Lockhart at TYAPlayFest@ThinkTankTYA.org
