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?

Guidelines

Setting

• In the Sky
• Underground
• In/Under Water
• In the Desert
• In the Woods
• On the City Street

Characters

Plays should have no more than three characters. Please include a character breakdown at the top of your play. In the breakdown, you can be as specific as you’d like about their demographics (age, ethnicity, gender, etc.) or as general or magical as you’d like (Carl is a fish).

Genre

The play can be any genre—comedy, drama, horror, polemic, tragedy, historical, docudrama, solo play, interactive, sci-fi, musical, or anything you dream up.

Format

There is no standard playwriting format. Feel free to use the Writopia Lab Playwriting Format as a model, if that works for you.

Narrators

There can be no narrator of the play who is not emotionally invested in the story. (i.e. Ramona can tell her story to the audience, but an unnamed narrator cannot tell her story to the audience.)

Length

Plays should be no longer than eight minutes in length. With dialogue, that evens out to about one minute per page. However, if you have longer monologues or speeches, it might be less. One way to make sure it doesn’t go over eight minutes is to read it aloud by yourself or with friends and time the reading.

A Note About the Production

Thirty plays will be selected for Outdoor Readings. Thirty plays will be selected for Zoom Readings. The productions will be pared down with very limited props and costumes. Please put the universe of your play in the dialogue.

Who Can Submit?

Submissions for the 2022 Worldwide Play Festival are open to all playwrights between the ages of 6 and 18.

Submission Deadline

Submissions will be accepted between January 5th and March 8th, 2022. Submit here.