Recognizing our position as a small program with a long reach, New Plays for Young Audiences proposes to actively work to disrupt trends that perpetuate a narrow lens of the youth experience, particularly focusing on the US experience. Seeking stories by and for global majority artists, youth, and creative teams.
The SOOS (Seeing Ourselves on Stage…) is a smaller program within our already small NPYA program. It’s a mentoring program designed to provide support for global majority playwrights and stories geared towards the global majority youth experience. There is no development, per se, just mentoring and then an opportunity for an unstaged (unrehearsed) reading. Additionally, one of the scripts may then be pre-selected for an upcoming year’s full series. The SOOS occurs primarily if not completely on Zoom. Please note that the program is currently on pause.
Call for Submissions
Between [Dates TBD], “Seeing Ourselves on Stage: Amplifying Global Majority Voices in TYA” (SOOS), part of NYU Steinhardt’s New Plays for Young Audiences (NPYA) series, seeks new and unpublished/unproduced global majority TYA scripts for online mentorship. The program is designed to amplify and support global majority TYA plays and playwrights. Scripts should be works still very much in progress. Up to four scripts may be selected each year. One of the selected scripts may later be selected for a slot in an upcoming year’s full NPYA series held in June.
We define TYA as plays for audiences aged 5-18 where the intended audience could be, for example, 5-7, 10-14, or 15-18 as well as for families with youth in that 5-18 age range. The stories are centered on the youth experience with their story being the primary one in the script. We define global majority TYA plays as ones that not only include global majority youth characters in the primary roles, but also speak to and reflect global majority communities and youth experiences in the story. By “global majority”, we utilize Rosemary Campbell-Stephens‘s definition, “Global Majority…refers to people who are Black, Asian, Brown, dual-heritage, indigenous to the global south, and or have been racialised as ‘ethnic minorities’.” As our goal is to amplify not only global majority stories, but global majority artists, we are only accepting submissions from global majority artists for this program.
After the submission deadline closes, a selected team of readers will choose the scripts to be mentored. Mentorship will happen during [dates TBD] with unrehearsed/unstaged Zoom readings scheduled in [date TBD]. Playwrights will work directly with the program’s artistic director (Tammie Swopes). NPYA will assist playwrights in securing actors for the unstaged/unrehearsed showcase but will be unable to pay them for their time (which will be approximately one hour).
Send us your submission here during the submission period. If you’re uncertain if your script meets our guidelines or you have other questions, please contact the SOOS Artistic Director, Tammie Swopes (tls289@nyu.edu) or NPYA Producer, Teresa Fisher (taf263@nyu.edu).
SOOS Artistic Director, Tammie Swopes (tls289@nyu.edu)
NPYA Artistic Director, David Montgomery (dm635@nyu.edu)
NPYA Producer, Teresa A. Fisher (taf263@nyu.edu)
Much thanks to the NPYA AAB for their assistance in the development of this program as well as Dr. Jonathan P. Jones!
SOOS Program History
BIPOC Initiative (2021): NPYA hosted three nights of BIPOC TYA stories written by BIPOC playwrights in an event titled, A Night of BIPOC TYA stories: Get Your Play Heard!, between June 17-19, 2021. The goal of the initiative was to help each script and playwright find additional support in their development and production journeys. The first night’s theme was folk tales and stories of the past. It featured Heartstrings by Lee Cataluna and Hee Hee Tales by M.J. Kang. The second night’s theme was magical realism. It featured Spayce Boys by Mateo Hernandez and Yo So Frida by Israel Jiménez. The third night’s theme was exploring what TYA is and what makes a TYA play. It featured R(estoration) I(n) P(rogress) by Andrea Ambam and Nzuri Haar by Darin F. Earl, II.
¡Lotería: Game On! (2022) by Mabelle Reynoso
When family game night falls apart, two siblings must rescue their mother trapped inside the game they were supposed to play. Inspired by the traditional Mexican card game Lotería.
The Show Ends When the Stoop Breaks (2022) by Cris Eli Blak
A neighborhood changing and the path that two friends must take – – one being a street dancer and the other a pizza delivery boy dreaming of a life greater than his block, while in the background, a mural important to both of them is at risk of being torn down.
Doble Vida (2022) by Cielo Gomez
The mother-daughter relationship of a Mexican immigrant household in the modern United States is tested in this coming-of-age story.
The Witch of Boggy Depot (2022) by Alan Kilpatrick (and further developed in the 2023 NPYA series)
A young Native American woman learns how to deal with Choctaw witches from a blind elder residing in an Oklahoma retirement home.