2011 Winning Entries

Senior Category

“Lights Out”

Are you afraid of the dark? When Maria is caught in a blackout, she bumps into Jon–literally–and learns to cope with her fear of the dark and reliance on leaving too many lights turned on. Jon teaches Maria about the beauty and sustainability of being surrounded by calm, natural blackness. In the end, will Maria still need a night light?

Performance time: ~10min
Cast: 1 boy, 1 girl
Recommended audience: can be adapted for K-12

Download play (pdf format):
Lights Out

Lights Out by Samantha Landa is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at now-org.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at www.now-org.com.

2009 – 2010

Drum rolls… announcement of the results of the 2009-2010 competition! Young playwrights shine at Canadian sustainability playwriting competition. We would like to thank everyone for making Act NOW! a reality; big thanks to our sponsors, partners, and supporters.

Judges include prominent playwrights, sustainability academia, leaders in sustainability organizations, and several members of the Act NOW! advisory board. We thank our judging panel for volunteering their time and expertise.

2008 – 2009

The 2008-2009 Act NOW! National Playwriting Competition was the first of its kind to challenge Canadian youth ages 12 – 19 to evaluate issues in sustainability and devise interdisciplinary solutions. Winners of the 2008-2009 competition were announced on Earth Day. Due to popular request, starting 2009 the Act NOW! National Playwriting Competition will involve youth ages 14 – 26.

A few words from a past winner

Winning plays are being performed across Canada by local theatre groups starting June 2009 to an estimated total audience of more than 10,000, as well as produced and aired on Sustainability Television. Please visit here for more information about the performances.