Six plays by seven playwrights were selected as finalists in the 2013-2014 Delaware Young Playwrights Festival (DYPF). The finalists will participate in a series of playwriting workshops with professional theater artists from the Delaware Theatre Company to refine their writing and prepare their works for a public showcase performance on March 11 on the DTC stage in Wilmington. 

The plays are “The Diner” by Saryu Chennat, Cab Calloway School of the Arts; “Breaking Glass” by Nikolas Hunter, St. Elizabeth High School; “The Intruder in Apartment 4B” by Lily Kairis, Charter School of Wilmington; “The Coffee Stag” by Veronika Lynch and Darian Sorouri, Cab Calloway School of the Arts; “Getting to Know Your Conscience” by Rebecca Oberschmidt, Charter School of Wilmington; and “To Break the Ice” by Sam Stewart, William Penn High School.

This year's DYPF began with a kickoff workshop for Delaware high-school teachers and students in September. From there, 58 plays written by 101 students representing seven Delaware high schools were submitted for the first round. Each playwright received personal feedback about his or her play from a teaching artist of the Delaware Theatre Company staff. Student playwrights had the opportunity to revise their plays. 

Participating schools were then invited to resubmit their top five plays for the second round, also known as the "competition round." From these entries, the six finalist plays were selected for additional development under the guidance of Delaware Theatre Company's team of theatre artists and educators.

Now in its third year of the relaunch of this program, DYPF invites students to write a play based on a theme inspired by one of the Delaware Theatre Company's productions. This year's theme was inspired by a quotation from “The Story of My Life,” presented by DTC in December of 2013. The quotation was, "It might seem small to you, but you change the world with everything you do."

Students were challenged to write a play in which a character or characters discover that their choices or behaviors contribute to a change in their own lives or in their community.