Children’s Theatre of Charlotte is excited to be a regional host for the Young Playwrights for Change Contest. Theatre for Young Audiences/USA (TYA/USA) and the American Alliance for Theatre & Education (AATE) launched this nationwide 10-minute play writing contest for middle school students (6^th through 8^th Grade) to give a voice to our nation’s young writers. The project harnesses the creativity of young playwrights and brings focus to real world issues. We seek to produce meaningful conversations about relevant topics that will ripple across our nation to provoke change. Our goal is to spark conversation and discussion throughout classrooms, schools and communities about the chosen topic.

The 2017-18 theme for the program was Rise Up: Fighting for Love and Inclusion in the Face of Hatred and Bigotry. Our regional winner was Makayla Gathers, a 7^th grader at Piedmont Middle School. Her play titled, Grass is Greener on the Other Side, explores what happens when a student must reconcile his views on immigration as he befriends a young boy from Brazil in a chatroom.

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Past topics

2019-20 Topic: TAKE A STAND .
Sometimes in life we see examples of an individual who doesn’t take a stand for an issue or problem. Rather the individual goes along with the status quo and does nothing and the problem continues. What is it like when someone does take a stand? What kind of change may happen in an individual to give them the courage to take a stand? How could a young person make such a discovery? What could that discovery make them do differently? We are asking young people to share their stories about taking a stand. To be considered, the play must meet these guidelines:

• Provide written permission from a parent or guardian
• Must not be entered into more than one host organization
• Must be no longer than ten minutes when read aloud
• Must have no more than six characters in the script
• Script is written in standard American format
• Must be the original work of the author, neither co-authored nor an adaptation of pre-existing work

For a complete list of of guidelines, visit the AATE website for a description of the program including formatting criteria for the submitted scripts.