Original student scripts met professional acting at the Creative Writing class’s Young Playwrights Project performance. The evening event on Jan. 9 featured eight student-written plays brought to life by actors from TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, a local nonprofit theater company.
“It was such a gift to meet with up-and-coming playwrights; such a gift to be working on my own career and work with students who are just at the beginning of theirs,” TheatreWorks actor Claire Fry said.
Creative Writing students have been developing stage scripts since October. Every class, students focused on different aspects of playwriting: looking at models, performing mini-plays and working on protagonist monologues — all culminating in their final creations, a 10-minute short play.
TheatreWorks playwright Patricia Cotter joined the class twice a week for six weeks to teach about crafting dialogue, developing plot, and creating believable characters.
“While working with new writers, especially young writers, I’m really interested to hear what they have to say. They don’t have all the rules in their head limiting them from writing what they want,” said Cotter.
She said being treated like a professional is particularly special for students, as many playwrights only get to experience it much later in their careers.
Though only eight out of 21 plays were featured in the evening performance, the entire class wrote original scripts, covering a wide range of topics and settings, from fights in Detroit pizzerias to betrayals in outer space. Many delved into deeper issues surrounding racism, personal identity and life unfulfillment.
For example, junior Adina Baker-Rabe’s play “Dark Side” explored perfectionism and self-sabotage, contrasting senior Christine Sampson’s humorous “The Button,” which followed a young woman on a dating show filled with stereotypically bad suitors.
“It was a bit of satire for the struggles women face in modern dating,” Christine said. “When making a comedy, I was scared no one was going to laugh and it would be awkward, but it ended up being really fun.”
For senior Haley Volkert, receiving feedback from industry professionals through the evening performances was “very validating,” especially considering she had no prior playwriting experience.
“Usually when you write something, no one reads it,” Haley said. “To have professional actors read it, and then act it out on stage, was awesome.”
Creative Writing teacher Susana Herrera said the skills students learned in her class — such as building character dialogue — will be valuable for many career paths.
“We’re so lucky to have this opportunity,” Herrera said. “I think it will be extremely impactful for these students, maybe for many years to come. By focusing on these skills, students are getting better at all of the other types of writing they want to explore.”
Beyond students’ preparation through writing the scripts, putting on the performances required hard and timely work from the TheatreWorks performers, too. The professional actors received the scripts the night before the performance. According to Fry, it gave them some time to look over their roles before rehearsal the next day.
That Friday before the evening performances, students were excused from class to work with the actors — 90 minutes of blocking, where they directed the actors and made final creative decisions.
“The playwrights were very much involved with the process,” TheatreWorks actor Drew Reitz said. “They would change around lines, let us know what their vision was or why they wrote things a certain way.”
That night, in front of a lively audience in the Eagle Theater, it was showtime. After each performance, students received a certificate to commemorate their hard work. Actors also pointed to the audience response as the particularly memorable aspect of the evening.
“It was great to feel the energy of the audience,” Reitz said. “They were super interested, receptive and engaged, which was amazing.”
