New Voices Competition

Welcome! If you are looking for information on the New Voices One-Act Competition for Young Playwrights 19 and under, you're in the right place!

Are you 20 or older and looking for our main submissions page? Go here.

New Voices Submission Guidelines

Before submitting, it's important to read the guidelines carefully. But here are the most important points:

• Submissions are open annually from January 1st through 11:59 PM Pacific time on May 1st.
• Playwrights must be 19 or younger as of the May 1st deadline.
• Plays must be the work of a single author.
• Non-musical submissions only.
• Plays must run between 10-40 minutes.
• Submissions must be submitted in PDF format.
• Each submission must consist of a title page, a cast of characters page and then the script itself (all in one file).
• The script must contain page numbers and must be a minimum of 10 pages, not counting the title page and cast of characters page.
• In addition to the play title and author name, the title page must include contact information for both the playwright and a teacher/parent, as well as a statement attesting to the fact that the playwright is 19 or under as of the submission deadline. Please review the submission guidelines carefully to make sure that all of this information is included. This is the single biggest reason playwrights are disqualified.

Guidelines for 2027 will be posted later this year, but for now, you can get an idea by reading the guidelines from the 2026 competition.

Click here for the full submission guidelines. Do not submit without reading these first!!!

Click here for a handy-dandy one-sheet, ideal for posting on bulletin boards.

Click here for our format sheet, which includes the title page (with all of the required info) and cast of characters page. Do not submit in screenplay format!

More Important Submission Info

• Please, no phone calls and no emails to [email protected] (our general email box). Inquiries should be directed to [email protected] only.
• Script submissions through this page only. No emailed scripts (and, of course, no snail mailed scripts.)
• Decisions typically go out by email sometime in the late fall, but it can sometimes take longer. Please be patient and do not follow up. Rest assured that you will be notified once we've made a decision.
• If at any point your script becomes unavailable (e.g., because you accept another publication offer), please email us immediately so that we can devote our resources to material that is still available to us.
• We do not accept submissions of previously submitted plays (either rewritten or otherwise restructured) unless we have specifically requested the resubmission.

Types of Material

• While there are no limitations as to genre or subject matter, plays should be suitable for school production and feature one or more youth characters in prominent, age-appropriate roles.
• We do not accept screenplays, fiction, non-fiction prose (i.e., short stories, novels, essays, etc.) or poetry.
• We do not accept plays for which any portion of the script has been written using artificial intelligence (AI).

Contest Updates

Submissions for 2026 are now in the hands of the readers! Submissions for New Voices reopen on January 1, 2027.

Congratulations to the winning entries in the 2025 competition!

Shutter Speed by Luiza Padoveze Goncalves (winner)

Meetings on Tilted Ground by Michaela Frey (runner-up)

Bruce by Penelope Stone; Carry by Olivia Kwon; The Last Thing You Ever Said to Me by Adelaide Riches; Leap by Brody Haley; The Life of a Teenage Alien by Evan Rodriguez; Nothing’s Wrong by Asha Morbyrne; The Seder by T Salomon; Seeing Red, Feeling Blue by Ava Raiford (honorable mentions listed alphabetically by title)

Resources

We strongly recommend you read Jonathan Dorf's blog, "Eleven Contest Winning Tips for Young Playwrights" before submitting. Want more playwriting insights? Check out his complete playwriting course in a book, Young Playwrights 101.

Want to read the plays that have been successful in past contests? Check out New Voices: Winning One-Acts by Young Playwrights and New Voices, Volume 2: More Winning One-Acts by Young Playwrights! This could be you!