‘Plays by Young Writers’
The Playwrights Project celebrates its 25th year with the presentation of this year’s winners of the California Young Playwrights Contest. The winning scripts run through February 28 at the Lyceum Theatre at Horton Plaza. Three plays get full productions; three others, staged readings.
Opening night offered professional productions of three short plays by Benjamin Sprung-Keyser, Quinn Sosna-Spear and Katie Henry. Two are serious plays about school problems; one, a comedy about the horrors of blind dates and – even worse – being alone.
What All School Children Learn
What do you do when you’re three years younger and several inches shorter than two kids who want to torment you? That’s the question posed by 16-year-old Benjamin Sprung-Keyser of Los Angeles in What All School Children Learn.
Eleven-year-old Charlie (Andrew Poole) has been targeted by Steven and Cooper, who either eat or trash his lunch every day and seem intent on making his life miserable just because they can.
Charlie tries feigning illness, but his working parents won’t hear of it. His dad Martin (Joe Solazzo) tries to teach him to fight, but that doesn’t work out too well either. Parent/principal meetings are ineffectual.
Clearly it’s up to Charlie to figure out how to handle the situation.
Sprung-Keyser has created realistic dialogue for a common situation, and a fine cast directed by Anne Tran brings the text alive.
Nir Mate-Solomon, Andrew Poole and Corey King in 'What All School Children Learn.' Photo by Ken Jacques.
Funny Little Thing
Remember how awful blind dates were? I do – especially the ones my mother set up.
Sam (Reed Willard), 34 and not just single but sans girlfriend, arrives at the Boxcar Café wishing he were somewhere else. As he puts it, “My mother is setting me up. She watches one show on the correlation between middle-aged criminals and being single, and now she’s setting me up on a blind date to keep me from robbing the local bank.”
Good old mom has set him up with a series of blind dates hilariously scripted by 17-year-old Santa Barbara playwright Quinn Sosna-Spear in Funny Little Thing.
Before and after the ghastly interactions with inappropriate women (all wonderfully played by Katherine Harroff), Sam gets tea and sympathy from waitress Heather (a perfect Wendy Waddell).
In between disastrous meetings are short interludes with aged café owners Paula (June Gottleib) and Wilmer (Ernie McCray), who rock, knit and reminisce about their early days as a couple.
Sosna-Spear’s dialogue is best between the younger characters. If I were to suggest anything about this play, it would be to drop Paula and Wilmer (who don’t add enough dramatically to justify their presence) and add more of those all-too-familiar dates. But Funny Little Thing is a wonderful little piece as is, boasting a solid cast and fine direction by George Yé.
Wendy Waddell, Katie Harroff and Reid Willard in 'Funny Little Thing.' Photo by Ken Jacques.
Re-Drowning Ophelia
Eighteen-year-old Berkeley playwright Katie Henry resents the sociological pigeonholing that considers teenagers as groups rather than as individuals. Framing her Re-Drowning Ophelia with a speech about the Shakespearean character who drowned herself when she found she could no longer be what was expected – dutiful daughter, loving wife – Henry discusses the modern high school caste system as a construct equally damaging to modern teens.
At St. Dymphna’s High School in Oakland, Jillian (Sarah McKenna) is the Alpha female, whose pronouncements are carried out by Beta female Jennifer (Callie Prendiville). On the outside is rebel Caroline (Diliana Deltcheva). Other social misfits are jock Rosa (Soroya Rowley) and brainiac Sarah (Carol Cabrera), who together have another problem: they are undeclared lesbians.
Henry rages engagingly about the voicelessness of teens and pleads for consideration of teens as individuals rather than sociological types.
Henry’s is a voice to be reckoned with. Winner of the 2009 national Young Playwrights contest, her plays have been produced in New York and Berkeley; one was just published by Dramatists Play Service. She is now studying dramatic writing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Remember the name.
Carol Cabrera and Soroya Rowley in 'Re-Drowning Ophelia.' Photo by Ken Jacques.
Only a few days remain to see these plays by talented young playwrights. Remaining performances alternate readings and full productions. See http://www.playwrightsproject.org/PBYW_FY10.htm for the schedule.
Plays by Young Writers plays through February 28, 2010 at the Lyceum Theatre. For tickets call (619) 544-1000.
