Each April, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre presents New Noises, the Massachusetts Young Playwrights’ Project (MYPP) festival celebrating the work of young writers. Over the four-day festival, more than 50 ten-minute plays written by Massachusetts high school students are given readings by professional artists. The program begins in the fall when BPT invites experienced playwright educators to participate as mentors, matching each mentor with a classroom teacher.
In 2022-2023, MYPP sent artist mentors into 21 schools throughout the Greater Boston area, reaching more than 400 young writers. As a culmination of the hard work and dedication that goes into creating their ten-minute plays, the students were invited to travel to BPT in the spring to participate in workshops and master classes, and to see and hear their own and their classmates’ plays come to life.
New Noises is not a competition, but a celebration of student work, where students have the opportunity to connect with professionals in the Boston theatre scene–from the mentors who support the generation of ideas and the creation of new work, to the actors and directors who collaborate with the students to stage the final readings. In 2022 alone, MYPP employed 78 local artists as playwriting mentors, directors, and actors.