Gambatte

This year I am mentoring students at the Academy of the Pacific Rim in Hyde Park, as part of the Massachusetts Young Playwrights’ Project. The poster above hangs in the school’s lobby; its community's guiding philosophy sets high standards for discipline, creativity, and diversity, and rewards effort and perseverance. What a terrific (the only?!) mindset for playwrights. Can’t wait to see the work that results from this group!

New Noises 2012 - Massachusetts Young Playwrights' Project

Check out a few of our favorite photos from last week's Massachusetts Young Playwrights' Project.

Steve Barkhimer, Robert D. Murphy and some students in Changing of the Guards by Jordan Browne of Cambridge Rindge & Latin School.

Just around the corner: New Noises 2012

Next month, fledgling playwrights from all over the Boston Metro will converge on BPT for the annual New Noises festival of ten-minute plays. New Noises showcases work developed in the Massachusetts Young Playwrights' Project (MYPP), which sends mentor playwrights into area high schools; student playwrights whose plays are selected for the festival are partnered with professional directors and actors. Technically, the result of these collaborations is two days of staged readings...but really, the result is two days of magic.

I look forward to MYPP each year, and always find myself energized by the intense creative spirit, enthusiasm,  and sheer talent of the high school students involved. Alum Michael Towers agreed to share a little about his experience working with students at Revere High School this year:

It was nearly 5:00 on Thursday, February 9^th when the school day ended for eight Revere High School students. They weren’t in detention. They weren’t in rehearsal for an upcoming production or at practice for a varsity sport. They weren’t even receiving course credit for the extra work hours behind a desk. The students seated in Ms. Rice’s third floor classroom for an extended school day were there for one reason alone: they want to be playwrights.

Behind the scenes at MYPP

How do you write a ten-minute play? Or, more succinctly, how do you teach others to write a ten-minute play?

I’m not sure there’s a single correct answer to that, but since I promised to post an update about the students at Walnut Hill participating in the Massachusetts Young Playwrights' Project (MYPP), I figure it may be fun to pull back the curtain a bit to what goes on behind the scenes.

Ten-minute plays are full-length plays in microcosm: They should have a beginning, middle, and end; relatable characters; metaphor. I’m not ashamed to say that I love them. Short plays allow me to experiment, take risks, and just plain ol’ have fun. But speaking of fun, I digress:

The whole experience began with a meeting between Allan Reeder (Walnut Hill’s Director of Writing & Publishing) and me. He told me about the students, what their writing is like [many already have written plays, under the guidance of none other than our own Ronan Noone, who is on staff there – BIG shout-out to Ronan here, whose students are great], the kinds of projects they generally take on, etc. Allan told me that he likes providing specific frameworks for the projects he gives his students; and, while there are a few experienced playwrights in this group of twelve, most focus on poetry or fiction and would be writing plays for the first time.

They had me at ‘hello’...

...literally. On Monday, I walked into the studio classroom where our workshop was to take place, and there it was on the white board:

An anagram of my crazy name – brilliant. In an instant I could tell these were my kind of folks. My peeps.

The Massachusetts Young Playwrights' Project brings together playwrights and student writers, and this year I am mentoring twelve of Allan Reeder’s high school students at Walnut Hill School in Natick. The students (many of whom have never written a play before) will write their own 10-minute plays over the next month or so. I’ll visit the school a couple of times -- when we will read and discuss their work together -- and keep in touch with them via e-mail as they revise their work.

Walnut Hill is one of a dozen or so schools in the Boston metro participating in the program, which culminates in the New Noises Festival at BPT in April. Read more details about this innovative program here.

I had a terrific time learning a bit about everyone and having a first listen to the students’ work, and I think they enjoyed it too: A few of them have e-mailed me already with new ideas and revisions of their plays! Watch this space for more on my adventures at Lawn Nut Ill! (Okay, yeah, maybe I can help them with their plays a little, and they can give me a serious education on anagram creation…)

More soon.