Format and Guidelines

Registration Form

MiniPlay Camp and Festival:

The highly successful and long-running Mini Play Festival sponsored by the Bloomington Playwrights Project invites students in grades 3 - 12 to submit original 10-minute plays in categories based on grade level (elementary, middle, and high school). Youth produce, direct, and perform the winning plays in each category at the Mini Play Festival each spring.

Mini Play requires aspiring playwrights to write on a theme in the elementary and middle school categories. High school entries can write on the theme or any other subject they choose. The theme for this year is ENGAGING THE ENVIRONMENT. The 26th annual Mini Play wants to involve students in the ever-growing green movements and philosophies. Submitted plays must tell stories about some aspect of an environmental issue that faces the world, our country or our local community. Students can write about current events such as climate change, threats to the world's coastlines, and genetic engineering of food sources. They can also pen plays on historical figures prominent in environmental movements like Rachel Carson, John James Audubon, Jacques Cousteau, or Karen Silkwood. They can write how youth can effect change by campaigning, writing letters, or even starting their own green movement. There is no limit to what a student can compose that tackles the subject of living in a sustainable, more green environment. A winning play will illustrate how well a student crafts an original story, characters, and setting while understanding the theme.

MiniPlay submission deadline: Dec. 9th, 2009

Winners Notified: Dec. 16th, 2009

Camp Dates: Saturdays, January 16th - March 6th, 2010

Performances: March 8 - 9th 2010 at Rhino's All Ages Music Club (331 S. Walnut St.)

Winners for the 26th annual Mini Play competition have been revealed. The BPP received nearly 250 play submissions to the contest, out of which only nine were selected, each demonstrating great emerging talent.

Elementary and middle school students wrote on the theme of "Engaging the Environment". They spun tales that included coal mining mountain top removal, endangered sea turtles, sentient toxic sludge monsters, and two children on a quest to save their world from an eternity of dead trees and scorched earth. High school students were not required to write on a theme. Their plays ranged from two parents who just wish their kids would go to sleep, a tale of a woman finding her place in the antebellum south even if it's in men's clothing, and a sweet tale of a painter who paints with astonishing strokes of reality.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Elementary School Division

First Place: The Flowering Flute by Ping Showalter, 5th grade, University Elementary School, Whitney Coake, teacher

Second Place: Tomorrow Will be Better by Emma Cannon, 5th grade, University Elementary School, Whitney Coake, teacher

Third Place: The Patch by Emilie Elizabeth Goswami, 4th grade, University Elementary School, Liesel Loudermilk, teacher

Middle School Division

First Place: Sea Turtles in a Dilemma by Savannah Lee, 8th grade, Batchelor Middle School, Brenda Polley, teacher

Second Place: Up in Smoke by Charlotte Wager Miller, 6th grade, University Elementary School, Erin Cerwinski, teacher

Third Place: Toxic Karma by Brynn Parkinson, 8th grade, Batchelor Middle School, Brenda Polley, teacher

High School Division

First Place: Ahh, Parenthood by Elizabeth Anderson, 9th grade, Bloomington South High School, teacher, Catherine Rademacher

Second Place: The Painter by Mary Rose Choi, 11th grade, Bloomington South High School, teacher, Catherine Rademacher

Third Place: Love at the Wrong Time by Nicole Cox, 9th grade, Bloomington South High School, teacher, Catherine Rademacher

For more information on education programs, contact Education Director at 812-334-1188 or education@newplays.org.