Matt Volk

Young Playwrights' Theater

YPT was founded by award-winning playwright, Karen Zacarías in 1995. After earning an MFA in playwriting, Karen returned to her hometown of Washington, DC. Seeking to use her art to impact her community, she began to teach playwriting workshops in DC Public Schools. Karen knew the impact creative writing could have on a young person's sense of empowerment from her own childhood experiences of using storytelling to cope with bullying by humanizing her bullies and imagining different endings to their interactions. Seeing how playwriting had a positive impact on students' literacy skills, sense of empathy, and personal self-image, Karen was inspired to expand her work, incorporating YPT as a nonprofit in 1997. Since launching our programming in one classroom in 1995, YPT has grown steadily over the last 25 years to serve more than 1,000 young people ages 8-24 and 1,000 audience members in all eight wards of Washington, DC, and areas of Northern Virginia and Maryland annually. YPT's work is now supported by a full-time staff of eight, a part-time staff of two, and a roster of more than 50 professional teaching artists, actors, and theater artists who serve our young people, our schools, our partners, and their communities each year. Our work has expanded to include programs that serve elementary, middle, and high students during and after the school day and during summer, as well as college-level programs serving young people up to age 24. In 2014, YPT launched Silence is Violence, our annual social justice performance series that highlights our young people's lived experiences and hopes for the future around issues of oppression that impact their community. In recognition of the strength of YPT's work in our community, we were awarded the 2010 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, the highest national award for organizations like ours.