Junior HS & Elementary selections coming soon!

We've finally resolved the issues that prevented the announcement of the Junior HS and Elementary selections. That information will be released on Friday. Thanks for your continued patience and understanding!

Junior High School finalists notified

Junior HS finalists (grades 7-9) have been notified via the email address provided with the script submission in January. Please note that if you submitted a script as a classroom project that the notice may have been sent to your teacher. Finalists will have until April 6 @ 11:59 PM to make any revisions to their script and re-submit it for final consideration by our selection panel.

Elementary finalists will be notified by the end of next week.

Our selection panel for Junior HS and Elementary plays will meet at the end of April and we will notify the playwrights whose plays will be presented at the festival by April 30th. Thank you!

Finalists Contacted for High School ONLY

We've reached the final round of judging for the High School division. A total of 18 scripts made it to the final round in this category. Emails have been sent to the finalists with further instruction for the contest. If you are in grades 10-12 and did NOT get an email this morning, I'm sorry but we will not be presenting your play this year. Thank you so much for sharing your words and ideas with us. Reader critiques will be sent to you soon.

Scripts submitted to the Junior HS (grades 7-9) and Elementary (grades 4-6) divisions are still being read. We hope to have annoucements about the finalists in those divisions very soon.

Almost done... sort of...

Our readers have been hard at work reading and critiquing plays for the NJ Young Playwrights Festival. A large amount of scripts in the Junior HS division means that the process for getting through those plays will take longer than for the High School and Elementary scripts. With that said, we're almost to the moment when we can contact the finalists for the High School and Elementary divisions. The goal is to do so by the end of this week. We will post again once all of the finalists have been notified. Until then, sit tight and keep writing!

Read out, Louise!

Just spoke with the mother of one of our Elementary division finalists. The playwright has been working on her script this week and tonight the family will read aloud the current version at the dinner table. The playwright's mom said that hearing it read aloud during the writing residency was so helpful, they have been doing it to help her work on the rewrites!

I was so happy to hear this and wanted to share it with all of you. If you haven't done so yet, get a group together and read the play out loud.

And don't forget, finalists - revised scripts are due soon:

• High School revisions due Friday, March 6
• Elementary revisions due Wednesday, March 11

Don't worry, Junior HS playwrights. We're still working on your plays. There were SO many of them this year that your division is a little behind. We should be in contact with the Junior HS finalists by the end of March. Hang in there!

Finalists notified for High School and Elementary divisions

We have been hard at work reading and critiquing over 300 plays submitted by students for the 2015 New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival. At this time we are able to announce that two contest divisions have reached the final rounds of judging. As part of our new process this year, playwrights whose scripts have made it to this last round will have two weeks to make revisions to their play using feedback from our first round readers as guidance. Revised scripts will be sent to our Selection Panel on March 7 and final selections will be made by the end of that month.

Finalists in the High School (grades 10-12) division were contacted via email this morning to notify them of their status. Elementary (grades 4-6) finalists will be contacted via email tomorrow. A follow up phone call will be made to any playwright who does not reply in confirmation of that email by the end of the week. We will attempt to connect with any teachers/schools whose information has been provided in connection with the scripts, too.

Junior HS playwrights (grades 7-9) can expect a slightly longer wait for the final round. We received over 200 submissions in that division alone! As you can expect, things have moved a bit slower for that group. Another announcement will be made on this blog when Junior HS finalists have been contacted.

Entering the Final Round!

Both the Elementary and High School divisions have now entered their respective final rounds of judging. The Junior HS division, always the largest of the three, is going to take a little more time before it is ready. However, I will meet with the Selection Panel on March 21 to discuss each of the finalist scripts and to select the plays from each division that will be presented at the 2014 NJ Young Playwrights Festival in June.

Stay tuned!