Jessica Jennelle (L) with Audrey Daniels (C) and Kylan Cotton (R) in our 2024 Main Stage Production of

The Amphibians by Dan Caffrey,

Directed by Kara Gold-Harris

Sofia Pickford (L) with Audrey Daniels (R) in our 2024 Main Stage Production of

The Amphibians by Dan Caffrey,

Directed by Kara Gold-Harris

2025

Submissions for our 2025 Festival are now closed.
Thank you to all who submitted!

Sofia Pickford (R) and Kylan Cotton (L) in our 2024 Main Stage Production of

The Amphibians

by Dan Caffrey,

Directed by Kara Gold-Harris

Jessica Jennelle (C) on top of Sofia Pickford (L) in our 2024 Main Stage Production of

The Amphibians

by Dan Caffrey,

Directed by Kara Gold-Harris

5th Annual TYA Play Fest!

In this fifth season of our TYA Playwrights Festival, ThinkTank Theatre seeks to provide a platform for forward-thinking and innovative work for Young People and Family Audiences.

Plays selected for our TYA Festival Showcase receive rehearsal with a professional cast and director, providing an opportunity for the playwright to collaborate with other professionals during the development process. The plays are presented semi-staged, script-in-hand for audiences, providing the playwright further opportunity to develop the work, in the presence of our Tampa Bay community. The dates for the TYA Festival Showcase is currently set for August 21st - 24th, 2025. Plays selected for the TYA Festival Showcase are under consideration for full production in a subsequent season with ThinkTank Theatre.

Julianna Sparto in rehearsals for our 2024 Festival Showcase Finalist Reading of In Bloom

by Gwyneth Strope

Directed by Hannah Hockamn

Parker Greenblatt (L), Adam Shoemaker (R) and Ariana Perera (DR) in rehearsals for our 2024 Festival Showcase Finalist Reading of

A Kreutzer Sonata

by Larry Rinkel

Directed by Brandy Gold

Gustavo Perez (L), Alex Rodriguez (C) and Jessy Julianna (R)

in rehaersals our 2023 Festival Showcase Finalist Reading of The House of Flightless Birds

by Bailee Shlitchman Directed by John Perez

Our Play Festival Audience: At ThinkTank, we make it our mission to produce inspirational, captivating, and forward-thinking professional theater for Young People and Family Audiences. ThinkTank believes young people and family audience material should reflect the world our young people currently experience and, as such, we do not shy away from mature topics, subject matter, and language. Please feel free to submit plays that might fit this genre.

Play Content: Plays should contain at least one character of a younger experience (to be played by actors aged 14-18). Plays that represent a variety of human experiences and/or characters who can be played by members of our community with special needs will be given further consideration, as these highlight the diverse community of our Tampa Bay Area.

We are not currently accepting musical submissions for the festival this season.

Selected Playwrights: Playwrights whose plays are selected for the 2025 Festival Showcase will receive up to a $500 honorarium to assist with travel to Tampa to take part in rehearsals and the staged readings.

The honorariums are generously gifted to the 2025 ThinkTank TYA Playwrights Festival by the

Gobioff Foundation, The Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners and ThinkTank's individual donors and sponsors.

Submission Guidelines:

- Deadline for submissions: Monday, March 25th 2025.
- Deadline for New Dramatists, Agent and PW Center Submissions: April 16th (If submitting past March 24th, please email tyaplayfest@thinktanktya.org to submit).
- Please submit your play via this Google form to be considered for our 2025 Play Festival by Monday March 25th, 2025. (The link has now closed. Please email us with any questions.)

- We will not be using the tagging on NPX as in the past, it has recommended TYA works that haven't aligned with the needs of our festival. We recognize the additional step required here to submit and appreciated you taking the time to share your work with us as a potential component of our TYA PlayFest.

- For Round One, please select a scene or up to 20 pages from the play that you feel best showcases your piece. If you submit your full play, we will only read the first 20-pages.
- Please also submit a description of the full-length play.
- Plays should have had no prior Florida Professional Productions.
(If the play has had a workshop production, please include this information on your form, as well as information about the company, # of performances, and contact information, if applicable.)
- Playwrights moved into Round Two for TYA Festival Showcase will be contacted around the end of April to submit the full-length draft of their play. All Playwrights will be contacted by July 15th, regarding their submissions.

Featured images from our Festival Showcase Performance and Talkback session for The House of Flightless Birds and an additional rehearsal image for our Festival Showcase Finalist In Bloom dure our 2024 TYA Playwrights Festival Showcase Weekend.

CRITERIA

Genres: adaptation, adventure, biography, comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, fable/folktale, fantasy, mystery/thriller, parody/spoof, period, science fiction, tragedy, young audiences

Length: 60-90 minutes, 90 minutes to two hours

Cast Size: 1–8, if your cast has more than 8 characters, please include a doubling list

Age Appropriateness: ages 14-17, ages 18 and up

Unproduced Work Only?: Can not have been produced in Florida

Playwright Location: United States and Canada

This festival is made possible in part by the generous support from the Gobioff Foundation, Florida Division of Arts and Culture, Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners, and our host at the JCC Cohn Campus. Our TYA Playwrights Festival is a developmental program dedicated to providing a working forum for progressive and forward-thinking TYA productions for today’s theaters. Our goal with this program is to select two to four new plays for a collaborative workshop process, with local Tampa Bay Theatre professionals – directors, stage managers, actors and designers, in addition to members of our Young Artists’ Ensemble (YAE) - the Young Artists’ Ensemble Apprentice Company (an auditioned group of high school students from around the Tampa Bay area, who work alongside our professional in an educational apprenticeship program). We are planning for a brief rehearsal period of 3 or 4 rehearsals, allowing time for playwrights to hear and adapt their work within the rehearsal process. The festival will culminate in a presentation of these works for the general public as part of the TYA Festival Showcase, giving ThinkTank and Tampa Bay audiences larger exposure to new works, as well as offering the playwrights an opportunity to get feedback from the audience during the development process.

Questions? Email our Festival Director Sadie Lockhart at TYAPlayFest@ThinkTankTYA.org