O'Neill Young Playwrights Festival 2024
Dream Design Process
What is the Young Playwrights Festival?
Each year, a cohort of young playwrights is invited to spend a weekend at the O'Neill Theater Center, where hundreds of remarkable plays and musicals have been developed and premiered (The House Of Blue Leaves, Uncommon Women and Others, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Fences, Avenue Q, In the Heights .. the list goes on).
Each young playwright is paired with a dedicated professional creative team—director, dramaturg, and actors—to help them develop their short plays based on the principles and techniques of the O'Neill's renowned National Playwrights Conference, culminating a script-in-hand public reading of their new play. The O'Neill also welcomes a number of students to attend as Guest Playwrights to observe the development processes, attend playwriting workshops and rehearsals, and hear their scripts read aloud.
What is a "Dream Design"?
A key part of the development process for plays at the National Theater Conference is collaboration with the Dream Designer, who helps flesh out a sense of the physical world of the play onstage.
As with the National Playwrights Conference, the Young Playwrights Festival Dream Designs are not intended to provide prescriptive, final solutions to the design and staging of the plays. While actors and directors explore the plays in rehearsals, the Dream Design process serves as another way to explore the worlds that these young writers have created.
Each year, a cohort of young playwrights is invited to spend a weekend at the O'Neill Theater Center, where hundreds of remarkable plays and musicals have been developed and premiered (The House Of Blue Leaves, Uncommon Women and Others, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Fences, Avenue Q, In the Heights .. the list goes on).
Each young playwright is paired with a dedicated professional creative team—director, dramaturg, and actors—to help them develop their short plays based on the principles and techniques of the O'Neill's renowned National Playwrights Conference, culminating a script-in-hand public reading of their new play. The O'Neill also welcomes a number of students to attend as Guest Playwrights to observe the development processes, attend playwriting workshops and rehearsals, and hear their scripts read aloud.
What is a "Dream Design"?
A key part of the development process for plays at the National Theater Conference is collaboration with the Dream Designer, who helps flesh out a sense of the physical world of the play onstage.
As with the National Playwrights Conference, the Young Playwrights Festival Dream Designs are not intended to provide prescriptive, final solutions to the design and staging of the plays. While actors and directors explore the plays in rehearsals, the Dream Design process serves as another way to explore the worlds that these young writers have created.
On the night of Friday May 17th, each team was introduced to their play and playwright, and each script was read out loud.
Less than 48 hours later, staged readings were presented to the public.
2024's Dream Designs were likewise created between Friday night and Sunday afternoon.
Less than 48 hours later, staged readings were presented to the public.
2024's Dream Designs were likewise created between Friday night and Sunday afternoon.