In the past 10 years YPT has:

• Received the 2005 Mayor’s Arts Award for Outstanding Contribution in Arts Education. 
• Reached more than 4,000 students with free, in-depth playwriting and literacy workshops led by professional DC-area playwrights.
• Produced over 100 plays written by DC public elementary, middle, and high school students and performed by professional actors and directors.
• Performed for more than 45,000 people at theaters, schools, community centers, senior wellness centers, and juvenile detention centers in all 8 wards of DC as well as Maryland and Virginia.
• Given more than 30,000 people their first theatrical experience.
• Employed more than 300 DC-area artists through the program’s readings, performances and workshops.
• Received national and international recognition through awards, educational grants, and press for our dynamic and effective programming.

• An independent evaluation of YPT’s programs showed that YPT participants’ grades improve, they read more, and they watch less television than before the program.
• YPT’s work with faculty and students at Bell Multicultural High School inspired the school to require students to write a play for their professional portfolios.
• YPT brought the cast from the National Tour of Les Miserables into the classroom to work with DCPS students on the first drafts of their plays.
• YPT collaborated with the Smithsonian Institution’s Discovery Theater in conjunction with its Retratos: 2,000 Years of Latin American Portraits exhibit. YPT playwrights studied the exhibit and wrote short plays about the art. YPT Artistic Director Karen Zacarías then wove the student works into one cohesive play, Retratos: Portraits of Our World, celebrating Hispanic history and culture, which was performed for visitors from around the world. YPT and Discovery Theater will again collaborate on a production in 2006.
• YPT playwrights studied Elie Wiesel’s Night, exchanged letters with Israeli students, and collaborated on a play, Choices, about the Holocaust, which was performed at the DC Jewish Community Center’s Theater J.
• YPT received the La Promesa award, a national recognition of YPT’s work with Latino students.

Looking for details about a specific production or project? Visit our Production History page by clicking here.