Students in grades 7–12 from around southwestern Pennsylvania entered the Young Playwrights Contest with hopes of having their scripts selected to be represented at the Young Playwrights Festival. One student in the IU1 area from Washington High School, Sasha Edwards, was selected to have her play represented at the annual festival.
Edward’s one-act play was selected out of hundreds of applications! Her play is one of six plays within the high school division that will have a staged professional production. Her play, “Glad you’re here,” tells the story of young man working in Pittsburgh faced with the difficult decision of leaving home or staying behind to care for family.
“I wrote and entered my one-act play into the Young Playwrights Contest with prompting from my performing arts teacher, Miss LaQuatra, who has been my director with our school’s theatre program since I was in the ninth grade. She encouraged me to take her class, and to write and submit my work, because of my background in creative writing and theatre. I had no idea that I would enjoy the process as much as I did, much less that my talent would extend beyond poetry,” says Edwards.
The Pittsburgh City Theatre’s annual Young Playwrights Contest encourages western Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia students to make their voices heard by writing and submitting original, one-act plays. Edwards encourages students to enter the contest, stating “I was amazed that what I had written had impacted the people that read it, and I felt proud of my abilities as a writer. Upon meeting my dramaturge and socializing with the other winners, I was honored to be a part of such an impactful program. I am thankful for the opportunity to participate in the contest.” Every script is read and evaluated by a Literary Committee, and each student receives a written summary of the evaluator’s comments, including constructive criticism and encouraging suggestions for continued revisions. Selected plays from the contest are represented each year at the annual Young Playwrights Festival.
City Theatre Young Playwrights is a comprehensive, dynamic arts education program serving teachers, students, and the Pittsburgh community. The program fulfills state academic standards, including Arts and Humanities as well as Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening. Four major components make up the Young Playwrights program: the Young Playwrights Contest, Festival, Teacher Institute, and In-School Workshops.
The 2016 contest is now open! Students have from now until , to enter their script and make their voice heard. Selected playwrights will develop their scripts in collaboration with professional theatre artists—a director, dramaturges, and actors—for productions in City Theatre’s Hamburg Studio Theatre during the 2016 Young Playwrights Festival. For more information on the contest and how to enter go to City Theatre Company website to get your students started.
Congratulations to Sasha Edwards on her accomplishments; we wish you all the best in your future endeavors!