Young Playwrights Festival 2012
Thursday, June 14 at 4:00 pm at
the Rainier Valley Cultural Center
New plays from South Shore School and Mercer
Middle School
in staged readings with professional
actors
Special Preview on Tuesday, June 12, at 4pm at Columbia City’s
Bookworm Exchange!
The 2012 SEEDArts’ Young Playwrights
Festival features professional actors performing the best student plays culled
from spring classes at Mercer Middle School and South Shore School. The plays tackle
tough topics and otherworldly ideas, explore the Civil War and Greek history, in
ways that are funny, moving and smart. A question and answer session with the student
playwrights follows the performance.
Student playwrights have worked on
the craft of playwriting all spring, in an in-school arts residency taught by
drama professionals. Through writing and performance exercises, each student
develops, writes and revises his or her own one-act play. Students’ plays are then
read by a panel of theatre professionals, and the best are selected for staged
readings.
Professional actors bring these
plays to life on stage at the Rainier Valley Cultural Center. Each year brings
surprises and delights – last year, a re-imagined version of The Wizard of Oz
brought down the house, and students are still talking about it. This year,
plays are filled with themes of freedom and independence.
Thanks to the Washington State Arts
Commission and Fales Foundation, the 2012 festival features a new community
preview! On Tuesday, June 12, Columbia City’s Bookworm Exchange hosts a special
set of preview readings. Student actors will join with professionals to share
excerpts of exceptional plays.
Drew Hobson, RVYT Teaching Artist at
South Shore, states: “I got to tell one
of my playwriting 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
grew up in the Central District. 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 in the
rest of the class that I was getting across to them. Encouraging a child's imagination unlocks an infinite amount of doors
in their future. ‘I believe in you’: four words that can change a child's life."
Calendar Information:
RVYT’s
Young Playwrights Festival 2012
WHEN: Thursday, June
14, 4pm
WHERE: Rainier Valley Cultural Center, 3515 S. Alaska St., Seattle,
WA 98118
Tickets: Free or
$5 suggested donation
Bookworm Exchange Preview Reading -
Tuesday, June 12 at 4pm
Ticket
Information: (206) 725-7517
Rainier Valley Youth Theatre is a
program of SouthEast Effective Development (SEED). SEEDArts
and the Young Playwrights
Program are supported this year by Washington State Arts Commission, 4Culture, and
Fales Foundation.
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