Young Playwrights are HERE!! YPF Tomorrow at RVCC - May 22, 4pm!

Calling all South Seattle folks! Come on down to the Rainier Valley Cultural Center tomorrow for the 2010 Young Playwrights Festival! We have six amazing, funny, moving, inspiring plays for you!

South Shore School Plays:

Ninjas by Elizabeth Wong

The Running Cat by Celia Huddart

Rainier Beach HS Plays:

Welcome Home by Tavia Silas

Love or Hate But We Are Family by Maria M. Soledad Barrientos

Truth To Be Told by T’Ra Watts

Love That Backfires by Jaquer Baker

Students at South Shore School and Rainier Beach High School worked with Teaching Artists Drew Hobson and Maria Glanz for 10 classroom sessions, learning the craft of playwriting and each creating her or his own short play. These plays were read by a panel of theatre and arts professionals, and the six plays you see today were selected as the most promising. We thank our Reading Panel: Kathya Alexander, Rich deLorme, Drew Hobson, Maria Glanz, Jerri Plumridge, and Laurie Rose.

We offer Special Thanks to both South Shore School and Rainier Beach High School, for hosting this program that invites and supports young writers in developing their powerful imaginations. We especially thank our amazing classroom teachers:

Kate Eads at South Shore School and Brooke Linefsky at RBHS

for their dedication and heart—they were wonderful teaching partners!

Rainier Valley Youth Theatre and Rainier Valley Cultural Center are supported by the Washington State Arts Commission and 4Culture. The 2010 Young Playwrights Program was supported by Fales Foundation, PONCHO, and the Jeffris Wood Foundation, and was a proud partner in the Rainier Beach HS Theatre Arts Collaborative.

The Young Playwrights Are Coming!

The Young Playwrights Festival is 3 weeks away - and it is going to be a knock-out. Every year I am amazed and moved at the plays turned out by these southeast Seattle middle and high school students - they tackle some of the toughest topics imaginable, in ways that are brutal, funny, moving and smart. Playwriting classes have been going all spring at South Shore and Rainier Beach High School, and in just a few weeks Seattle's coolest actors will bring the very best plays to life.

So get your calendars out and SAVE THIS DATE:

Saturday, May 22 - 4pm

Rainier Valley Cultural Center
3515 S. Alaska - SW corner of Rainier and Alaska, in Columbia City

See you there!

a note from Drew Hobson, now teaching at South Shore School...

One of RVYT's amazing teachers, Drew Hobson, just wrote this about his residency at South Shore School:

"Today I got to tell one of my playwrighting students that I believe in him. He Kept Insisting that he doesn't have an Imagination. And I told him (and then the whole class) that I grow up in the Central Distric too. Gangs, Drugs, Shootings, I've seen it all. But I had someone when I was their age show me how to use my Imagination to Free myself from my surroundings. That's why I LOVE doing what I do, having the chance to tell them if I did it, so can they. I could see on his face, and the rest of the class that I was getting across to them. If that's all they walk away with from my class, then I've Succeeded. Encouraging a Child's Imagination Unlocks an Infinite Amount of Doors in their Future. And "I Believe in you", Four Words That Can Change A Child's Life."

Young Playwrights! Stories are unfolding...

RVYT is currently teaching playwriting residencies at Rainier Beach High School and South Shore School. Teaching Artists Maria Glanz and Drew Hobson are leading students through the creation of characters, settings, plots and conflicts - and from the look of some first scenes, these plays are going to rock!

SAVE THE DATE:
The Rainier Valley Youth Theatre Young Playwrights Festival will take place on Saturday, May 22, at the Rainier Valley Cultural Center, a program of SEEDArts. The YPF features professional actors performing the best student plays written during playwriting residencies held this spring at Rainier Beach High School and South Shore School. Student plays are read by a panel of theatre professionals, and the best are selected to be performed in staged readings. A question and answer session with the featured student playwrights follows the performance.