FST’s Award-Winning WRITE A PLAY Program Marks 36 Years

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Each year, the program gives students the opportunity to experience live theatre, learn the fundamentals of playwriting, and create original works.

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For 36 years, Florida Studio Theatre (FST) has invited young people across Florida to discover the power of storytelling through its award-winning WRITE A PLAY program. Each year, the program gives students the opportunity to experience live theatre, learn the fundamentals of playwriting, and create original works of their own. Through partnerships with schools and communities throughout the state, FST continues to help young people transform and fully realize their ideas.

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WRITE A PLAY unfolds in three stages throughout the school year, beginning with a professional production at FST. This season, students can experience Pinocchio, written by Greg Banks and adapted from Carlo Collodi ’s classic story. Whether attending as a school field trip or as part of FST’s Children’s Theatre Series, students begin the program by encountering the thrill of live theatre firsthand.

Next, FST’s Acting Apprentices come directly into classrooms across Florida with Imagination Rocks!, an interactive theatre experience that explores how stories are transformed into plays. Following the performance, Playmakers lead students through hands-on workshops focused on four essential elements of playwriting: character, dialogue, conflict, and setting. With this foundation, students begin developing original plays of their own with guidance from their teachers.

“WRITE A PLAY lets students see themselves as creators, not just audience members,” said Caroline Saldivar, FST’s Director of Children’s Theatre. “When students write their own plays, they learn that their ideas matter and that their voices can have an impact. It’s incredibly rewarding to watch their stories take shape.”

Students are then invited to submit their work to FST’s Young Playwrights Festival, which receives thousands of original plays from young writers each year. From these submissions, winning plays are selected for professional production.

The journey culminates each spring when students return to FST to see the winning works performed by professional actors in The Monster Who Got a Second Chance & Other Winning Plays. These short plays showcase the unique perspectives of young writers, giving students the precious opportunity to see their own words brought to life on a professional stage.

WRITE A PLAY’s grande finale is FST’s annual Young Playwrights Festival, bringing together hundreds of students, educators, and families from across Florida and as far as Scotland and Israel. Student playwrights are celebrated with certificates and medals, while audiences gather to recognize the creativity and accomplishment behind each original work.

“We ask them to write authentically and to be brave,” said FST Associate Director At-Large and WRITE A PLAY creator Kate Alexander. “And then they're given a medal of valor for their chosen play. The Greeks gave their artists medals of equal to their soldiers, because they said it took as much courage to write a play as it did to go into battle.”

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/sarasota/article/Florida-Studio-Theatre-WRITE-A-PLAY-Program-Continues-20260925)._