Youth in the 21st century are in need of broader exposure to and involvement in the arts. They also need educational approaches that develop critical reasoning and communications skills, increase literacy, and encourage creativity and non-violent self-expression. Young Playwrights Inc.'s Write A Play! curriculum is designed to address those needs. The program begins with the spoken word, thereby offering the opportunity for expression without the immediate constraints of formal grammar and syntax. The Dollar Bill exercise, for example, uses improvisation to introduce students to Conflict, Needs and Obstacles, and encourages exploration of these concepts through participation. Students become more comfortable with the idea of writing through exercises such as the One-Minute Play, which has students write a simple two-character scene from the opening line “Hey! Did you see…” in one-minute’s time. Students are encouraged to explore the creation of a scene with the same free-flowing energy as in the improvisatory exercise, now putting pencil to paper. Traditional writing skills are developed and honed, formal grammar and syntax reviewed and applied as befits the intentions of the playwright. The Write A Play! curriculum demystifies the creative process for both students and teachers, explores problem-solving, and guides students through the creation of a play.  

At the core of Write A Play! is the philosophy that every young person has something valuable to say and an inherent right to be hear. The curriculum encourages students to express the ideas that are most important to them. They infuse their writing and reading of plays with their cultural perceptions and life experiences in a manner that cultivates and celebrates their world view. This approach motivates young people to write – when they find out that their ideas matter, they become intent on making those ideas heard. And in making those ideas heard, it is inevitable that self-esteem, literacy, and communication improve – and the art form is all the better for it.

Dr. Frances McGarry has been teaching theater for more than twenty-five years and was selected for the 2007 American Alliance for Theatre & Education Theatre Leadership Institute. In 1993, she was the recipient of the AATE John C. Barner Theatre Teacher of the Year Award in recognition of a theatre program she authored and developed. In her search to select new plays for her Theatreworks program, Frances became acquainted with the Young Playwrights Festival in New York City which eventually became the subject of her doctoral dissertation in the Program of Educational Theater at New York University. She has served as an adjunct professor in the Program of Educational Theatre at NYU and the Department of Theatre at CUNY/Brooklyn College. She has been Director of Instruction at Young Playwrights Inc. since 2007 and has presented the Write A Play! Curriculum at local, regional, and national and international conferences including Face To Face, the Southeast Center for Education in the Arts, American Association of Theater Educators/Association for Theater in Higher Education, Queens Council on the Arts, and the University of London.