Young Playwrights Festival
City Theatre Company
Pittsburgh, PA | 2024
Dramaturg for Tinder Tension & Festival Script Supervisor
For 25 years, City Theatre’s Young Playwrights Festival stages professional productions of six winning, one-act plays chosen from nearly 400 Young Playwrights Contest submissions.
Saturday, October 19
1:00 PM High School Performance
6:00 PM Middle School Performance
Sunday, October 20
1:00 PM Middle School Performance
6:00 PM High School Performance
Selected submissions to the Young Playwrights Contest are given professional productions at City Theatre as part of the annual Young Playwrights Festival. Student playwrights develop their scripts in collaboration with professional theatre artists—a director, dramaturgs, designers, and actors—for productions on City Theatre’s stage.
Middle School:
SQUISHED by Reagan Dobson and Afton Rogers
7th Grade, Keystone Oaks Middle School
After his father is squished by a human, a lanternfly seeks to avenge his death. Join Lenny and his fellow lanternflies on an epic quest for revenge against the cold-blooded humans. This is a story of persistence, friendship, and a lesson in minding your inter-species manners.
COME HOME HAPPY by Justus Payne
7th Grade, Shiller Steam Academy & Alumni Theater Company
Grief affects everyone differently. Sometimes it isolates. Other times, it unites. This heartfelt story follows a family finding their way back to one another as they navigate the loss of a loved one.
INSIDE A BOX by Ira Clemens
8th Grade, Falk Laboratory School
Stanley is just a guy, stuck in a room, living controlled by the will of a disembodied voice named Lester. Witness an existential look at power and one’s own free will through this absurdist play.
ABOUT THE PLAYS
High School:
SAVE THEM by Jonathan Pennybaker
10th Grade, Alumni Theater Company
In the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement, a family seeks justice for their loved one after he was murdered by a police officer. While navigating their own grief, they fear the same cycle of brutality repeating again and again. A lyrical exploration of the balance between safety and justice.
TINDER TENSION by Libby Eannarino
12th Grade, Sewickley Academy
Tinder makes it easy to connect, but when Stanley swipes right on someone with a complicated history, he might have bitten off more than he can chew. After all, you can’t trust everyone you meet on the internet, now, can you?
FLOWERS, GONE by Eliza Jane Burgess
9th Grade, Oakland Catholic High School
The tumultuous Vietnam War divided families across the United States. Lisa Johnson, a renowned folk singer, turns to her music, hoping that her family’s commonalities will overcome their differences.
