Young Playwrights project showcases students’ work

In early October, senior Shayda Roohpavar began writing her first play, “What do you want to be when you grow up,” about three friends applying for college. On Dec. 10, after two months of careful editing and rehearsing, she finally got to see the end result-her play being directed and performed by professionals.

Roohparvar, seniors Sella Malin, Karen Peterson and Luna Schmid, juniors Manini Desai and Jason Tatman, and sophomores Nastasya Kutuyev and Andrew York each had the opportunity to showcase an original play at the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts.

The Young Playwrights Project is a program held by TheatreWorks, an organization that focuses on helping high school drama students learn the art of playwriting. Arranged by drama teacher Sarah Thermond, the project began as a lesson in the playwriting unit for advanced drama students.

By mid-October, all 30 advanced drama students had written a 10-page play and submitted it to Jake Arky, the representative from TheaterWorks who came to present the program. The top eight plays were chosen for editing and performance by professional actors and directors, Roohpavar said.

“[The eight students] would read each other’s plays out loud, and we’d have different drafts, and  we’d get feedback from everyone [on] what to revise,” Peterson said. “It was really interesting to see the plays progress.”

Roohparvar said that although their shows were directed and cast by an outside director, the writers were still able to insert their ideas into the rehearsal process.

“The directors would stop and ask us things like if we were OK with different parts being said in different ways, so we got a lot of say in how the plays were put up,” Roohparvar said. “We would sit down and read through the play, and then we would and talk about why we wrote it and how we saw it being done.”

Roohparvar, who plans on directing a student production later in the school year, thinks that this experience gave her a new perspective on how to cast her play.

“I’m definitely going to try having people read lines from the play, and see if I like the way they play the character, because a lot of people read lines in ways that I wouldn’t have even thought of,” Roohparvar said. “I’m definitely going to trust actors to input.”

Both York and Peterson agreed that it was interesting to see characters they had created portrayed in a completely different way than they had pictured.

“Most of the time when you’re writing you’re hearing the little voice in your head playing  your own predetermined characters saying the stuff you’re writing,” York said. “When you hear these actors, it’s like you're hearing another perspective coming out as these characters, and it kind of just blows you away.”

York and Peterson said it was an unusual experience for them because they’re used to being on stage theatrical experience because they are used to being on stage, not behind the scenes.
“I not only got to see what it was like from the backstage view, but also after everything was done I got to sit in the audience and listen to their reactions, and hear them talk about [my play] to each other,” York said.

This project also allowed Peterson to pick up her hobby of playwriting again.

“I used to write a lot but I actually stopped writing four years ago because I didn’t think I could write,” Peterson said. “But with this project I started writing again, and I think I’m going to continue writing after this.”