Young Playwrights Inc.’s Urban Retreat is a nine-day intensive program in playwriting for writers aged 14 to 21.
Open by application only, each year young writers from across the United States come to New York City to attend the Retreat.

Urban Retreat participants:

1. •Take daily writing workshops conducted by Young Playwrights Inc. workshop leaders that allow you to explore the basic elements of playwriting, discover new ideas and situations to write about, share and receive feedback on your work, and revise and deepen your writing.
   

2. •Engage in luncheon roundtable discussions related to the craft and business of playwriting with theater professionals.
   

3. •Attend the best of what New York theater has to offer including Broadway and Off-Broadway shows.
   

4. •Receive one-on-one feedback on your writing from a professional dramaturg.
   

5. •Write a new short play.
   

6. •Rehearse with a professional director and actors in preparation for an Off-Broadway staged reading of your new play to be produced at the close of URBAN RETREAT.
   

In 1981, Stephen Sondheim and other members of the Dramatists Guild brought renowned British director and educator Gerald Chapman from London’s Royal Court Theatre to New York to inspire a new generation of playwrights. Out of this collaboration came the groundbreaking Young Playwrights Festival and Write a Play! Workshops. Through these programs, over 30,000 young people have been exposed to the art of playwriting. Now we’re making our process available to you. You can study playwriting in the world’s most exciting theater environment at Young Playwrights Inc.’s Urban Retreat!

Retreat participants will take two to three intensive workshops daily. These sessions are designed to get you started on a play, help you create complex characters and distinctive dialogue, offer solutions to writer’s block, and explore revisions. You will also attend discussions and lectures by prominent theater artists and work one-on-one with our workshop leaders on revising and deepening your writing; and you will collaborate with professional dramaturgs, directors, and actors on the production of your new play. Interspersed with this intensive study will be outings to New York productions.

Urban Retreat participants will live in dormitory-style housing, supervised by responsible resident advisors.

Tuition for the Urban Retreat is $1750, including meals, housing, theater tickets, and local transportation.
A NYC resident rate of $975 is available for local participants that do not require housing.
Take advantage of our Early Bird Rate and take $175 off the non-resident rate when you register by March 1, 2011!
Open to writers aged 14-21.

Final Application Postmark Deadline:
Monday, May 1, 2012

Click to download:
Flyer (PDF)
Application Form (PDF)
Article: We Theater Geeks by Jason Fitzgerald, UR 2002

For more information call 212.594.5440 or email [email protected].

Please Note: We kindly request you do not send the following types of mail:
Registered or Certified Mail, Return Receipt, Delivery or Signature Confirmation
Sending mail such as those above that require authorized signatures will delay our receipt of your mail.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Playwright Alison Stine
on her experiences in the Urban Retreat