With support from the California Arts Council, Playwrights Project’s professional theatre artists will conduct programs across a grade level in three middle schools for students from low-income neighborhoods, engaging youth as playwrights to uplift individual voices, increase self-confidence, and encourage empathy. The grant will fund artist fees and program costs.
Playwrights Project provides playwriting workshops in schools, communities, and correctional facilities, conducts the annual California Young Playwrights Contest for writers under the age of 19, and professionally produces community readings and full productions of Plays by Young Writers and The Mosaic Festival. Playwrights Project’s programs engage underserved populations in dramatizing stories drawn from imagination and life experiences, including reflections on the impact of poverty, incarceration, addiction, foster care, and military service. Recognizing that life presents difficult situations, forces beyond our control, and challenging decisions, the programs guide individuals to reflect on past experiences with compassion, create fictional plays that examine hardships, explore positive non-violent solutions, look forward to brighter futures, and celebrate the resilience gained by triumphing over difficulties.