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Programs for Young Playwrights Aren’t Just Kid’s Play
History is full of kids earning fame – and sometimes fortune – early in life. The iconic Romantic poet Thomas Chatterton was famous by age 12. William Cullen Bryant published political satire at age 13. The Spanish Baroque playwright, Lope de Vega, wrote his first play at age 12, and the actor Ernest Truex performed the work of the Bard at age 6. So, the idea of theatre programs devoted to the development of playwrights among the K through 12 set is just, well, normal.
Theatre-for-youth programs, including those devoted to young playwrights, occupy an important place in the overall development of theatre. Young playwrights of today may become tomorrow’s Yasmina Reza or Nilo Cruz. Just as in any profession – science, math, sports – starting out young can make a big difference to future success. Quiara Alegría Hudes, a 1993 alumna of Philadelphia Young Playwrights (www.phillyyoungplaywrights.org), wrote the book for “In the Heights,” a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical and was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize.
Early involvement in acting or playwriting means that by the time you are an adult you have a better understanding of how theatre works. It means you can devote more time and energy to developing creative skills. Programs for young people also help foster a lifelong interest that may turn today’s youth into tomorrow’s avid theatre goers.
On a personal level, programs for young playwrights contribute to the emotional, social, and academic learning of the young people who get involved. Thomas Dean Kellogg, founder and artistic director of Mentor Artists Playwright Program, or MAPP, (www.mentorartists.org) based in Los Angeles sees it as an opportunity for young people to talk about their fears, desires, love and frustrations to a wider audience. “It’s a way for their voices to be heard when typically they aren’t. Young people are often afraid to speak out because they fear the consequences.”
Cecilia Kouma, managing director of Playwrights Project (www.playwrightsproject.com) in San Diego, Calif. agrees. “Most people don’t realize that student playwrights aren’t generally writing children’s theatre,” she says. “They’re writing about things that are important to them, things that confuse them or make them angry or frustrated.” So, rather than fairy tales or adventures featuring bunnies and kittens, young people’s writing addresses both the good and the bad of life; in the latter case, things like divorce, drugs, gangs, pregnancy, and suicide.
Young people also learn that to communicate their feelings and ideas, they have to put them into understandable forms. Dr. Wade Fransen directs for Apollo Youth Summer Theater in Martinsburg, W. Va. He notes that many basic skills – reading, writing, communication – are an important part of the youth theatre experience. “You have to understand what a verb is and how it works in a sentence if you’re going to write a play,” he says. In other words, it can be a sneaky way to augment what kids learn in school. After all, even the most experimental plays have something resembling a beginning, middle and end. Characters have to say things that make sense in the context of the play. Playwrights have to be able to communicate effectively to other people. According to Kouma, young people “aren’t always asked to comment on what’s happening and how it impacts them. But playwriting demands this of them. They have to dig deeper and answer these questions for their characters. And then, communicate this to actors who reveal it to the audience.”
Philadelphia Young Playwrights pairs classroom teachers with teaching artists to work with students at their creative and educational level. The program focuses on “improving students’ writing, thinking and interactive skills,” says Executive Producing Director Glen Knapp. The program works with up to fifty public and private K-12 schools each year partnering closely with teachers to tailor the program to the specific needs of a student population or specific curriculum. “Playwriting gives every individual student the central voice and role in her or his learning and creative processes,” Knapp says.
Finding their voice is a benefit that young people recognize as well. Emily Reit is a high school senior whose play, “Prom Night,” was selected for performance in 2009 after winning one of the yearly competitions at Playwrights Project. “Seeing my writing coming to life was incredible,” she says. “The audience was laughing and very responsive. I got a lot of great feedback. It showed me that not only do I have a voice, but that I can turn that voice into art.”
Reit learned another valuable lesson from her participation. “I had no idea that plays needed that much revising. I thought that you just wrote one and bam! It was done. But I was oh so wrong.”
Students quickly find out that programs for young playwrights are more than just play. In addition to academic benefits, it’s an opportunity to develop responsibility, confidence, and to discover the necessity of working together. Many programs, like Knapp’s and Kouma’s work on the basis of competition, so young people learn about that as well, though in a context that may be outside of what they learn in sports or other areas of life.
“It’s not that much fun,” Kellogg says then quickly adds, “Let me clarify. We do have fun, but the young people find out that it’s a lot of work. It’s not easy to open up and let your voice out as a writer.”
Knapp’s program, the only one in the Philadelphia region to use playwriting to address literacy, teaches the values of empathy, collaboration and taking risks. “For many students,” says Knapp, “this may be the first time they have an opportunity to express what is most important to them.” Kouma’s program requires that students learn how to write essays and narrative stories as part of the process. “Playwriting is hard work,” she says.
There are few scientific studies on the benefits of theatre education for youth, and none that look specifically at the effects of playwriting. In a 2007 study published in the journal, Child Development, however, researchers Reed Larson and Jane Brown, see emotional learning as an important outcome of participation in school drama programs. The experience of a guided and organized “emotion culture” – like a theatre program – provides young people with a safe environment in which to observe and participate in a wide range of emotions like those experienced by characters in a play. This can contribute greatly to their own emotional and psychosocial learning and development and “may be valuable if not essential to learning to understand and manage emotions.”
This may be particularly useful in the case of at-risk youth. MAPP travels around the country to work with incarcerated youth, those in drug rehabilitation centers, in youth residential facilities, as well as with underserved Native Americans, the illiterate and young people with disabilities.
Knapp reports similar success in encouraging student academic success. According to him, 75% of the program participants, many of whom struggle with their literacy skills, saw improvement in their writing. 94% of their teachers also reported an increase in students’ understanding of the writing process.
Any program for young people must keep in mind the developmental needs of younger children and pre-adults. Fransen notes that even the most motivated kids don’t choose these programs on their own. “Ultimately, a parent makes the choice,” he says, since it is the parent who gives permission. You can’t be sure if the kid is there for herself/himself or because the parent wants it. Youth programs must recognize that parents, kids, teachers, and program directors may have different motivations for doing the program. So, placing the needs of young people at the core is essential.
“They won’t all become actors or playwrights, but they will all become adults,” Fransen says. Helping young people make that transition successfully may be a worthy enough goal by itself.
To peruse more stories on playwrighting, visit the DramaBiz Magazine Web site at www.dramabiz.com
