Founded in 2010, Writopia Lab’s Worldwide Plays Festival is an annual Off-Broadway festival of one-act plays written by playwrights ages 6 to 18 and produced, designed, directed, and acted by New York City theater professionals.
Since its inception, the festival has produced live theatrical productions of plays written in workshops at Writopia’s labs across the country and plays submitted to our competition from playwrights around the world! Comedies, musicals, monologues, historical dramas, tear-jerkers, and thought pieces—all written by the talented young playwrights of tomorrow.
In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic prevented us from hosting live gatherings, Writopia Lab released the plays as 40 short podcasts. For 2021 and 2022, we continued to meet the moment with both virtual performances and socially-distanced outdoor readings of plays in Central Park, Riverside Park, and Bryant Park. This allowed us all the communal experience of theater, while keeping our playwrights, artists, and audiences safe. Since 2023, we have returned to the stage!
WPF 2026: Behind the Mask
We are excited to announce that Writopia Lab’s 2026 Worldwide Plays Festival theme is Behind the Mask! These days, Masks are everywhere: from superheroes and supervillains to Halloween parties, Purim Festivals, and Comic Con; from surgeons in the operating room to ICE agents on our streets; from pandemic protocol to protest garb. Masks are worn at play, for protection, and to provoke—on and off stage.
Across the world, masks have always been essential to storytelling: from the Ancient Greeks to the Italian Commedia dell’Arte, from Balinese dance-drama to the elegant Noh masks of Japan. The list goes on and on.
This year, the Writopia Lab Worldwide Plays Festival proudly joins that global tradition.
For our 17th Festival, we invite playwrights to explore the role masks play in our lives. What do we choose to hide? What do we choose to reveal?
Location(s)
- TADA! Theatre, New York City, New York
Schedule
- June 3 - June 7, 2026
Cost/Compensation
- Free
Eligibility Requirements
- Playwrights must between the ages of 6 and 18
- Playwrights must have participated in a Writopia program—workshops, private sessions, W2R, retreats, camps, school/organization partnerships, etc.—over the past year.
Deadline
- March 13, 2026
Application or Entry Requirements
- Each play must include characters who have a meaningful history with each other— think friends, family, neighbors, people who you want things from and want things for.
- You must incorporate at least one physical mask onstage and may feature up to four actors. Beyond that—be bold, be imaginative, and let the mask help you tell the story only you can create.
- Length should be 10 minutes.
- If writing in a lot dialogue, think 8-10 pages, if your play has a lot of monologues, think 5 pages
Notifications of Decisions
Financial Aid Details
Other Dates to Keep in Mind
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Writopia Lab is a creative writing program based in New York City that offers workshops, classes, and camps for young writers in grades K-12, with a focus on helping students develop their writing skills in a variety of genres, including fiction, poetry, and playwriting. Writopia Lab has served over 20,000 students since its founding in 2007 and has been recognized for its innovative approach to writing education, including being named one of the top 50 after-school programs in the United States by the National AfterSchool Association.
