Special Projects Young Playwrights’
Special Projects
Young Playwrights’ Theater often collaborates with theaters, museums, and other institutions to create timely works, highlighting the voices of DC students in some of Washington’s most prestigious venues.
Businesses, museums, theaters or community organizations seeking to create a special project with YPT can contact Executive Director Brigitte Winter at bwinter@yptdc.org.
Crossing the Street: SW Is...
Fall 2016
Crossing the Street: SW Is... is a workshop series and community festival that explores what Southwest DC was, is and can be. Through...
The 524 Project
Spring 2014
In August of 2013, YPT was thrilled to learn that we won a $50,000 grant that enabled us to partner with Detroit-based InsideOut Literary Arts Project (iO) and Meridian Hill Pictures (MHP) to work...
The Civil War Special Project
Spring 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
7pm Performance
As part of our Special Projects program, YPT was commissioned by Ford’s Theatre to explore some of the themes and issues that still reverberate today from the...
The Woodlawn Cemetery Project
Winter 2011
On February 7, 2011, at 7pm at GALA Hispanic Theatre (3333 14th St. NW), YPT premiered Woodlawn, a new play created collaboratively with residents and organizations throughout Ward 7 in Washington, ...
The Good Neighbor
YPT Collaborates with Fannie Mae to Premiere Community Play on Homelessness
Choosing Change
Spring 2009
By the students of Oak Hill Academy
Directed by David Andrew Snider
Chasing George Washington:
A White House Adventure
A world premiere Kennedy Center co-commission
and co-production with the White House Historical Association
Book and lyrics by Karen Zacarías
Music by Deborah Wicks La Puma
Directed by John Vreeke
The Nation of Immigrants Project
Presented by Patrick Crowley and YPT
Who gets to decide who belongs in the United States of America?
American Rice
The Smithsonian Institution commissioned Young Playwrights’ Theater to create an original piece on Asian American identity. YPT Program Manager Patrick Torres led six months of workshops with Asian...
Retratos
Inspired by the National Portrait Gallery’s traveling art exhibit Retratos: 2,000 Years of Latin American Portraits, YPT’s Retratos was commissioned by the Smithsonian’s Discovery Theater. 
More...
Choices
Written by Bell Multicultural High School students in reaction to the Holocaust, Choices was a life-changing experience for many of its writers.
After reading Elie Weisel’s Night and through pen-pal relationships with the Kfar HaNoar Mozenson school students in Hod HaSharon, Israel, the Bell students were inspired to express their own struggles with violence and loss. Karen Zacarias worked with them to create Choices. Students told of losing their houses to arson, and holding dying friends in their arms as a means of trying to imagine the degree of loss and sacrifice endured by those targeted during the Holocaust, as well as their resolve.
Choices was directed by Abel Lopez and performed at Theater J in 2004.
Holy Ghosts: Stories from Meridian Hill
Working with Washington Parks and People, students in YPT’s After-School program explored Meridian Hill Park, an urban jewel in the midst of Washington, DC and a setting for many historic events.
Students interviewed community members about their experiences and memories of the park.
Their play Holy Ghosts: Stories from Meridian Hill was performed in Meridian Hill Park in 2001 by professional actors.
Special Projects Photo Album
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Special Projects photos on Flickr.