Fire and Youth

Posted on July 27, 2005 by Lauren Bahlman

How many middle school kids does it take to write and act in two plays in just three weeks? In the case of the Summer Playwrights program, we had a definite answer: twelve. Prompted by a couple of creative settings (outer space and a lifeboat), these young playwrights divided up and got to the first task of writing the plays.

The results were astounding, including such things as a 120-year-old pirate, an intergalactic firefighter, two different robots (one for each show, of course) lava people, ending up inside of a whale, and even a musical number or two.

These kids astounded us. Not only were they creative, but they all seemed to have an innate sense of creating the stuff good plays are made of, from action scenes to drama and even some comic relief. And that was just the writing. The final three sessions were frantically spent putting the plays up on their feet. Jason was trying hard to get that pirate voice down. Slide shows were being put together. Everyone wanted to memorize their lines and blocking. Then, before we knew it, it was the day of the big show.

True, little Phoebe was pretty nervous. According to her, she was worried that her stomach was doing flip-flops. But in those last frenzied hours it all seemed to pull together so seamlessly that when the lights came up and the applause had died down we were all left with a feeling of pure awe. Discussing it afterwards, we realized that we may have a couple of future Broadway stars in our midst (Skye in particular had the heroic gestures down pat). However, one thing was certain: these kids had truly done it and we couldn’t have been more proud.

Posted by Lauren Bahlman