• Phone: 313.872.6910

New Voices: Detroit – Plays

New Voices: Detroit is currently accepting short plays from students in grades 8-12 for the New Voices Detroit: Summer Festival! To submit your play for a chance to work with a professional coach, have your work performed, and a chance to have a PAID mentorship! Follow the instructions below.

For a Play Here’s What to Do:

  • Plays should reflect this session’s theme: Lost in Time
  • You may only enter one play up to 12 pages and no more than 4 characters.
  • Plays may be submitted as a summary of the story you want to tell or as a script in Standard American format.
  • Scripts must be entirely written by one young person who is in grades 8-12 at the time of submission.
  • We accept submissions from youth who attend school in or live in Metro Detroit.
  • Monologues, Musicals, and Short Screenplays are eligible.
  • Adaptations of other authors’ works are not eligible.

​Still have questions? E-mail them to: [email protected]

Submission Guidelines

  • FIRST, save your play as a Microsoft Word Document (saved as .doc) or an Adobe PDF (.PDF is preferred) with the name of the document as Play Title, Grade, Author Last Name.
  • THEN fill out an Electronic Submission form by clicking HERE.​
  • Once you have uploaded your play, you will receive a confirmation email. Please review your submission info to make sure you have entered everything correctly.

SUBMISSIONS NOT MEETING THESE CRITERIA WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED FOR FINALISTS SPOTS WHICH INCLUDE PROFESSIONAL COACHING, CASH PRIZES AND PRODUCTION OPPORTUNITIES. 

F.A.Q

Want to submit your work of art (play, radio play or musical composition) for the New Voices: Detroit Summer Festival but need a bit more info? Here are a few frequently asked questions we get from young artists, teachers & parents?

  • Youth in grades 8-12 that live or attend school in Detroit, Highland Park or Hamtramck.

  • Plays should be no more than 12 pages or roughly 12 minutes long. You’ll want to make sure you tell the whole story in these pages so be thoughtful about which elements are important.

  • Your play should have no more than 4 characters.

  • We look forward to supporting youth with tools, connections and resources to share art that is important to them. Based on feedback from Detroit-area youth the theme for the NVD Summer Festival is.

  • You get to choose!  We only ask that you stick to the topic of being lost in time.

  • We would love to hear what you have to say through your art and we hope that you will give us a chance to experience it. We expect and encourage youth who have never done this before and have an interest in taking the journey to submit. We also encourage those who know that writing is “their thing” to submit. We look forward to pairing finalists with a coach to bring their idea to the stage that it’s ready for a Director and Cast to bring it to life.

  • After you submit your work of art, identifiers are removed and the work is catalogued and is shared with our NVD Committee. The NVD Committee is made up of theatre and music professionals. Your work of art will be read by at least two of our Committee member. They will send their evaluations to us, and we compile it into a summary. Your summary is then emailed to you over the summer.

  • We will announce finalists via livestream.

  • Yes! If you previously submitted to New Voices: Detroit  and were not selected as a finalist you may submit it again. Writing a play or composing a song is a process and if you’ve revised a previously submitted work, we’d love to see how it’s evolved.

  • Play Style Sheet: Standard American Format

    Please use the following guide to make sure your script is in the STANDARD AMERICAN FORMAT before you send it in to the New Voices Detroit contest. Questions?

    Email [email protected].

  • Mentor/Coaches are both local and national playwrights and composers who are currently working in the industry with experience working with young people. Once the finalists are selected, they will each be assigned a mentor/coach. For the next few weeks, the young artists and their coach will work to develop and make revisions to their piece. Communication will be by email, video conference and phone. While everyone has time constraints, it is assumed that coaches will spend a few hours per week over the coaching period working together with the young artists and that the young artists will spend additional time outside of the coaching sessions to revise their work. Once the revisions are completed, the revised pieces, labeled Final Draft- Name of the Piece-by Young Artist Name will be sent to [email protected] in preparation for rehearsals (by no later than July 27th at 5pm).

    Note: Youth playwrights and composers are required to work with the mentor/coach and revise their work during this process. Not doing so will result in withdrawal from New Voices: Detroit and forfeiture of all awards and opportunities related to the New Voices: Detroit Summer Youth Playwright & Composer Festival.