Junior Varsity

Student playwrights show their skills

Comments (0) By Jennifer Medina Thursday, Jun 8 2006

Your experience with theater in high school was limited to a shoddy adaptation of Twelve Angry Men. Or Our Town. Or any other play that gets performed at high schools across the country on a daily basis. But what did you expect? It's not like you were ever given the opportunity to grow as an artiste and express yourself. Once (and only once), your teacher had a brief section of class devoted to playwriting, but in the end she told you it was something best left to the professionals, and then you found out exactly why. Enter stage left: your show-off classmate's attempt at a script, all about her recent break-up with the captain of the debate team. "Oh, yay," you say, realizing that only a select few students are talented enough to tackle playwriting. But it's so hard to find them...Enter stage right: Five of the area's most talented playwrights are here to show what they can do.

The McKinney Avenue Contemporary’s 8th annual New Works Festival (a month of productions and readings in association with the National New Play Network (NNPN), focused on bringing new talent to the stage), brings us the fifth year of Playwrights Under Progress (PUP) Fest. After combing through scripts submitted by high schoolers from all across the metroplex, the five best were chosen and further developed through workshops with local (experienced) playwrights. PUP Fest takes place at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday in the Heldt/Hall Theater at the MAC, 3120 McKinney Avenue. Admission is free. The New Works Festival runs Friday through July 2. Call 214-953-1055 or visit kitchendogtheater.org for tickets and festival show times.
Sat., June 10, 1 & 4 p.m.