Writopia Lab’s 2022
Worldwide Plays Festival

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, we continued to meet the moment with both virtual performances and socially-distanced outdoor readings of plays in Central Park and Riverside Park.

For 2022, we plan to continue with outdoor theater in the park, this time under a tent in case of rain, as well as virtually. This allows us all the communal experience of theater, while keeping our playwrights, artists, and audiences safe. We’re thrilled to announce the theme for the 2022 Worldwide Plays Festival.

Worldwide Plays Festival:
Out of this World

We are pleased to announce that the theme for Writopia Lab’s 2022 Worldwide Plays Festival is “Out of this World.” The past year, we’ve all had to contend with a new normal in our lives. But the beauty of theater is always its ability to create a communal moment out of our fantasies and fears, our frustrations and frictions. This year, we are excited for our playwrights to explore their own personal journeys while taking us “Out of this World.” Please take a setting outside of your day-to-day life, from the In the Sky, Underground, In or Under Water, in the Desert, in the Woods, or on the City Street. From there, we want you to fly high into your imagination, but we also want you to dive deep into your soul. What is something that you desperately needed this past year? It could be connection or community, it could be resolution of a fractured friendship, or it could be a change of the status quo. Can you give that very personal desire to your character(s)? Can you take us out of this world and bring us somewhere brave, bold, and new?