2013 Festival is underway!

Aaron Kaplan in a scene from Blues-Berries by Philip Peker

Today began rehearsals for the 30th annual New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival! The day started with a reading of plays from the Junior HS and Elementary divisions followed by readings and blocking rehearsal for the high school plays. We were thrilled to have 7 of our 10 playwrights present today and look forward to working with them throughout the week.

Here are just a few glimpses into today's action:

Director Dania Ramos (left) works with Chaelee Chaput, Cara Ganski, and Tarshai Peterson (l-r) on a scene from You Definitely Got All That From Your Mother by Emma Iacometta.

Things got a little painful for Seth Jambor during rehearsal for Good News! by Philip Anastassiou

A moment from Mirror by Kelsey Garrett (l-r Cara Ganski and Chaelee Chaput)

See more pictures in the NJYPFestival 2013 album on our Facebook page (no need to be a Facebook member to see!).

Festival starts in a few days!

We're excited to begin rehearsing for the Festival on Sunday. We have a great cast and creative staff in place and are excited to bring such imaginative work to life. Stay tuned to this page and our Facebook and Twitter feeds for updates through the Festival!

Results of the 2013 NJ Young Playwrights Festival

We are proud to present to you the winning plays/playwrights of the 2013 New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival! The following plays will be presented during the Festival in May.

High School Division

• You Definitely Got All That from Your Mother by Emma Iacometta, 11^th grade, Bergen County Academies
• Mirror by Kelsey Garrett, 11^th grade, Middletown High School South
• Blues-Berries by Philip Peker, 11^th grade, Livingston Senior High School
• Good News! By Philip Anastassiou, 11^th grade, Bergen County Academies

Junior High School Division

• We’re Sisters by Christine Vapsva, 9^th grade, Union County Academy for Performing Arts, Scotch Plains
• Untitled by Emma Ohlig, 9^th grade, Union County Academy for Performing Arts, Scotch Plains
• An Obstacle Worth Facing by Lindsay Gerrato, 8^th grade, Columbia Middle School, Berkeley Heights

Elementary Division

• A Tale of Two Kitties by Matthew Sidorovich, 5^th grade, Lafayette Elementary School, Chatham
• Bully Days by Zachary Vincent, 4^th grade, St. Vincent Martyr School, Madison
• It All Happened in 24 Hours by Anna Gregory, 4^th grade, Lafayette Elementary School, Chatham

Congratulations to all of the playwrights who submitted their work to the Festival this year. We received a large number of good plays and had a great time reading them, but a difficult time selecting those to be performed.

We encourage everyone to attend the Festival readings on May 20 (Junior HS and Elementary plays) and May 21 (High School plays) in the University Center Little Theatre on the campus of Kean University in Union, NJ. Performances will begin promptly at 7:00 pm. While the events are free, reservations are highly suggested, due to limited space available. Please contact the Education Office at Playwrights Theatre to make your reservation today - 973-514-1787, ext. 21 or njypf@ptnj.org.

Stay tuned for updates about the Festival throughout the next four weeks!

Advice for young playwrights, Part 6

The final installment of our advice series comes from playwright/teacher/NJYPFestival script reader, Kelby Siddons. Enjoy!
-----------------------------------------------

What makes a strong play?

At least two of the following, usually all three: compelling characters, strong structure, poetic language and/or action.

What types of characters do you like to write?

I like to write characters in a state of becoming, which leads me to teen characters who are smart, funny, caring, and driven but have doubts, (in)experiences, and relationships that challenge them.

What do you look for when choosing a play to work on?

As a director, I look for a play that fascinates and rewards me, and by extension, the audience. Sometimes the reward is big laughs, sometimes it's important, unresolved questions. I'll always gravitate more towards the play that gives me both those things.

Please describe the best experience that you had working on a play.

I directed an ensemble in Shakespeare's As You Like It, and it was wonderful because of how clearly complicated things become and the fact that each actor had an integral role to play in all those comic complications. In terms of structure, Shakespeare is the ultimate to borrow from.

Please describe the worst experience that you had working on a play.

As a Kangaroo in  Peter Pan, I was completely expendable. To paraphrase Jose Rivera, write parts that actors want to play.

What advice would you give to a young playwright currently working on a new play?

Ask yourself where the Fear and Love are in your play and your characters' lives. If you have one without the other, there's no conflict. Drama is created when these two dance.

One week to go, too!

If you are in grades 4-9, then at 11:59 pm today there will be exactly one week left for you to submit your play to the NJ Young Playwrights Festival!

One week to go!

If you are in grades 10-12, then at 11:59 pm today there will be exactly one week left for you to submit your play to the NJ Young Playwrights Festival!

Advice to young playwrights, Part 5

Continuing our advice series with comments from playwright and NJYPFestival script reader, Kirk Woodward. Enjoy!
------------------------------------------------

What makes a strong play?

For me the most important element of a strong play is a good idea. A solid idea makes everything else possible. A weak idea means the writer is constantly playing catch-up.

What types of characters do you like to write?

The answer to this question varies with the play, of course, but I like characters with spunk. Also, as a male playwright I set myself years ago the challenge of writing at least as many female as male characters, and I like that.

What do you look for when choosing a play to work on?

I know this comment is terribly subjective, but it has to excite me. There are many excellent plays that will do better if someone else writes them or directs them, because they don’t stir my imagination.

Please describe the best experience that you had working on a play.

I once wrote the entire score for a musical for children during one working day, while sitting at my desk. (Didn’t get much other work done, however.) That was fun!

Please describe the worst experience that you had working on a play.

Fairly typical: I worked a long time on a draft of a play, and when I finished it I re-read it and realized it was a total bomb from beginning to end. NOTE: if that happens, you have to either rewrite it entirely, or discard it. Don’t try to breathe life into a dead play. You’ll write others. If you don’t like it, no one else will, that’s for sure.

What advice would you give to a young playwright currently working on a new play?

Don’t listen to advice too much. When it comes down to it, your job is to write. Let other people do the evaluating. Write what you feel you’re called to write.

Deadlines!

We are now 12 days away from the submission deadlines for the 2013 New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival! Please remember that submitting your script to us is a TWO part process:

1) Complete the playwright information page at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2013NJYPFtitlepage
2) Send your script as an email attachment (Word Doc or PDF only, please!) to njypf@ptnj.org

When sending your script, please label the file with YOUR NAME - TITLE of PLAY - DIVISION. Thanks!

ALSO, we encourage all NJ-based young playwrights to send their plays to the national playwriting contest run by Young Playwrights, Inc. Their submission deadline is today! For more information, see their website at http://www.youngplaywrights.org.

Happy writing!

Advice to young playwrights, Part 4

Our advice to young playwrights continues with some thoughts from a few of the actors and readers who have worked on the New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival.

-------------------------------------------

What makes a strong play?
A strong play has great characters and a moving/interesting plot.

A strong play is not necessarily a traditional story, but like any good story, it has a reason for being told here and now. A play's sole purpose can be entertainment, but that does not diminish the importance of the question: Why this play now?


What types of characters do you like to portray/write?
I love to play the comic relief most of the time. The character that can do no wrong and everybody loves him. Though playing a villain is also fun… playing a character that is not who I am.

I like to portray characters that are complicated. In real life, people are not stock characters. Real people have different layers to their character and sides of themselves that they don't always show the public, but are still inside. Stock characters are great in some genres of theatre (such as Commedia dell'arte), but realistic characters are complicated.

I find the most success writing characters whose actions are firmly based in the circumstances of the play. I always try to make sure that a character's actions spring from his/her surroundings or from other characters. Every action should be justifiable, even if it isn't logical (or sane).


What do you look for when choosing a play to work on?
I look for a play that has strong character relationships and a great conflict that those characters encounter.

I look for a play with language that makes the room buzz when it's read aloud. This can be dialogue in the form of a fierce, biting argument, or monologue in the form of a soulful soliloquy. This language seems to come from sincere and causal circumstances.


What advice would you give to a young playwright currently working on a new play?

To keep a positive and open mind. Believe in your work and give it your all.

Writing a play can be difficult, but it does not have to be sequential. Writing the last scene first, a middle scene last or a random scene with no definite place can ease the difficulty of writing scenes in order. Write the part you're dying to write!

Be open-minded. It is perfectly fine to have a clear vision for what you wish to accomplish with your piece, but be open to new ideas from people who haven't been working tirelessly on the script for months. Sometimes outsiders can offer ideas that you never would have thought of before! Try some ideas out and if they don't work, there's nothing wrong with scrapping them.

Advice to Young Playwrights, part 3 - Summer Hortillosa

Our next installment of Advice toYoung Playwrights comes from Summer Hortillosa, a 2007 NJ Young Playwrights Festival winner for her play, The Not-So Lovely Tale of Strawberry Fructose. Summer is a journalist, playwright, and director whose recent work can be found on her website http://www.summerization.com.

Enjoy!
---------
What makes a strong play?

I think strong plays have a clear direction in multiple areas -- character development, plot and audience experience. Strong plays feature relatable, consistent characters with believable dialogue that make their needs clear and drive the story. A strong play is one that has many movable parts that are pieced together in a way that the beginning can't help but eventually result in the ending and the ending seems to have only been possible because of the beginning.

What types of characters do you like to portray/write?

I like to both portray and write fantastic characters with fantastic needs. I like unique characters who are almost entirely figments of imagination but who have strong emotional cores that make them completely relatable. I like strong characters, strange characters and characters capable of witty, fun dialogue. Argumentative and honest are some of the best things a character can be.

What do you look for when choosing a play to work on?

Generally logistics play a large role when selecting a play for production, but otherwise I try to select plays I feel I have written well or, when doing someone else's play, that they have written well. I like to choose plays that explore a fair range of emotions, that would be fun to produce and watch and that I feel are strong and have interesting characters.

Please describe the best experience that you had working on a play.

My most recent production, a one-woman show in the SO LOW Theater Festival in Jersey City called Kookspeak, was one of my favorite experiences so far because production was easy. I wrote, directed and performed the piece and used very few props or effects, so I did not have to worry too much about budgeting, aligning schedules or a lot of other stuff that happens when I have to produce/stage manage/do everything for my shows. In this case, I mainly focused on promoting my show and on rehearsals.

Directing one's self can be a challenge and requires a lot of self-awareness (or, if possible, a video or mirror as an outside eye), but was a lot of fun for me. I was able to make myself work whenever I wanted to, and while I had a general rehearsal schedule that I set up for myself and tried to stick to, I had a lot of freedom to rehearse more or less than planned depending on my needs. I was free to push myself as hard as possible and make all the executive decisions, which is always great.

Also, it made the final product very pure -- I will perhaps never have a work as fully representative of who I am as an artist. The words, thoughts and emotions were all mine, as were the staging, direction, acting choices -- it was liberating and fully satisfying, especially when I received a great response from my audience and peers.

Please describe the worst experience that you had working on a play.

The worst -- or rather, most difficult -- experience I had working on a play was a full production of Shakespeare's As You Like It involving about 32 high school students. Having to direct over 30 teenagers with various levels of commitment and talent as well as oversee the entire production -- with very little control over the groups in charge of lighting, sound, costumes and props -- was mindbogglingly tough.

I had to double-cast our leads, Rosalind and Orlando, which lightened the load for four generally equally talented actors who weren't very accustomed to memorizing lots of Shakespearean speech, but made it difficult to make the characters consistent throughout the play. Also, as a requirement for the class, we had to have every student -- even those who were terrible at acting -- play a role. Lastly, as any director can imagine, coordinating the schedules of over 30 people and having to deal with egos, lateness, forgetfulness, mistakes, irresponsibility, and all the other possible vices any group of 30 could have was a monumental task in itself.

Overall, however, we were able to pull it all together and put on several great performances. As any director will quickly discover, learning to roll with the punches and press on to put on a good show is possibly the most important skill they can have.

What advice would you give to a young playwright currently working on a new play?

Make sure every effect has a cause and every cause has an effect when you revise. Tying up loose ends, making sure that important facts are established (in a natural way and at the right time) and keeping characters consistent will strengthen your play. Read dialogue out loud and make sure everything sounds natural; cut what you can. Don't fall in love too much with your favorite characters or with your ability to write, because you might end up dragging out scenes and tiring your audience or worse, finding yourself disappointed when your work is produced and the performance doesn't live up to your expectations.

Advice to Young Playwrights, part 2 - Constantine Ligons

A few weeks ago, I asked some of the actors, directors, playwrights, readers, and teaching artists who have been associated with the NJ Young Playwrights Festival for their advice for young playwrights like you. This advice comes from Constantine Lignos, a NY-based actor/playwright who also was a NJ Young Playwrights Festival winner in 2006. Here is Constantine's response below... enjoy!

------
A strong play is universal. Anyone can relate to any character at any moment in the play. No matter how personal it may be for the playwright, audiences want to see something that they feel they have a visceral connection with, not just one writer's one-hour psychotherapy session. The writer needs to distance himself from the subject matter. To do this, he must delve so deeply into the experience that it is no longer about his own personal and emotional relationship to the matter, but how the world is affected by that aspect of human-ness.

I almost exclusively write strong roles for women. Women who are so down in the dumps that their ascension must be an act of power and control. To portray this in a way that would seem universal, I always add some abstraction to them. We can always universally relate to the abstractions of the imagination. Imagination is something we all share.

As an actor, I look for a fun challenge. A play that lets me push the boundaries of how a character should be played. It's never fun to do what you should do. We're allowed to break the rules as artists, so why don't we?

As a writer, I write plays that I know I won't get sick of in a few weeks. I almost always do get tired of them, though.

My advice would be to keep a journal. Always. And write in it every day. Write everything without hesitation. Also, never be afraid to write a scene, or a few bits of dialogue, instead of a whole play. You'd be surprised how those 4 lines you wrote can turn into a three-act play a few years down the road. When you're feeling down, write. When you're feeling great, write.

Making characters into people

(portions of this post were originally published on November 11, 2008)

Characters should function in the world of your play as a real person, or being, inside that world. They have certain ways of moving, thinking, and interaction with other people or beings, just as we all do in “reality.” Giving a character a name is a simple way to begin fleshing them out.

A few years ago, I led a playwriting workshop for teachers at the NJEA Convention in Atlantic City. Each of the participants completed a Self-Questionnaire similar to the one in the previous blog post. After that, I asked everyone to take their own name and recreate themselves as a new character by changing at least their last name… some changed both. (I learned this activity during a workshop run by Young Playwrights, Inc., an organization that runs an excellent national contest for young playwrights. I would encourage you to submit your play there, too - http://www.youngplaywrights.org/.) If you are stuck for a character idea, or a character name at least, this is a simple way to get started. Some of the names the Atlantic City group came up with were:

Jean Mercedes
Nicole Moodie
Fran Active
Fresca Visions
Calliope Sky

These names give a sense of something specific about the character. It could be a characteristic, a favorite color, an environment, and on and on... Do you have an idea of what some of these characters might be like? How old are each of these characters? What do they do for fun? Do they work? What kind of work might they do? What does each character want in life?

Another way to get deeper into a character is to use a Character Biography Sheet. In his book The Playwrights Process, Buzz McLaughlin provides samples of mini-form and long-form biographies. At Playwrights Theatre, we use an adaptation of his Mini-form biography that asks a playwright to consider the character's dreams, secrets, fears, and conflicts. These are all great places that might spark an interesting story idea.

I’ve often found that when I can envision my character I have an easier time writing for him or her. Then I write a description, or even a short (very short) story, to place that person in a location and to get a sense of how they move, think, and interact with others. This doesn’t need to be something that becomes part of the play, but just something that I can use to get a clearer sense of who the story is about and how they function. Once that is set, its time to give them something to want and a problem to face. More about that in a few days.

Happy writing!

2013 Script submission deadlines announced

The script submission deadlines for the 2013 New Jersey Young Playwrights Festivals have been announced!

January 14 - plays for the High School division (grades 10-12)
January 15 - plays for the Junior HS (grades 7-9) and Elementary (grades 4-6) divisions

The preferred method of submission is by email. Please see the website for information about how to submit your script - http://www.ptnj.org/pages/nj-young-playwrights

We look forward to receiving your play in January!

Advice to Young Playwrights, part 1 - Arthur Wilson

A few weeks ago, I asked some of the actors, directors, playwrights, readers, and teaching artists who have been associated with the NJ Young Playwrights Festival for their advice for young playwrights like you. Specifically, I asked the following questions:

• What makes a strong play?
• What types of characters do you like to portray/write?
• What do you look for when choosing a play to work on?
• Please describe the best experience that you had working on a play.
• Please describe the worst experience that you had working on a play.
• What advice would you give to a young playwright currently working on a new play?

From now until the winter I will be posting some of these responses for your consideration as you work on your play for this year. We begin today with a response from Arthur Wilson, one of our master teaching artists, who was not only involved with the NJ Young Playwrights Festival during its earliest stages, but also with the first years of the national playwriting competition run by Young Playwrights, Inc out of New York City. Here is Arthur's response below... enjoy!

-----

ADVICE TO YOUNG PLAYWRIGHTS

A strong play is based on something you the playwright has burning inside you

and you want to share it

(Catharsis, Dream, Imagination Sat On its' Head, Experience from something learned)

Characters that are not one dimensional and transform so the audience

experiences human growth, development, or stagnation

Poetic language moves a play beyond common language

but be careful -- the poetic language must communicate and not simply be a frill

A STRONG STORY IS MANDATORY

BUT DON'T BE FRIGHTENED NOT TO MAKE A PLOT LINEAR

The best experience I had working on a play

Having a team of Historians from Princeton University work collaboratively with the research

Rehearsing with a small cast capable of honesty for cuts, bridges, and clarity

Rewriting without having a need to hold onto every word or phrase

simply because I wrote it -- FLEXIBILITY

LISTENING

ALLOWING THE ACTORS TO SUGGEST CHANGES & TRYING THEM

The worst experience I had working on a play was not having enough time to rehearse

Often budgets require miracles

Young Playwrights working on a play RIGHT NOW

BE PREPARED TO REWRITE, REWRITE,

RE-DREAM A SCENE

TAKE RISKS

DON'T TRY TO BE CONVENTIONAL OR SO EXPERIMENTAL

THAT MEANING AND POINT OF VIEW ARE LOST

BOOM!

Life's mysteries

History is full of stories written to explore and explain some of life's mysteries. How was the world created? Why do birds fly? If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound? These questions, and others like these, lie at the heart of our cultures, religion, and philosophy, and have inspired experiments in art and science.

Some of the most compelling plays that we've received at the NJ Young Playwrights Festival have explored mysterious questions like these - sometimes on a grand, global scale; sometimes in more familiar surroundings. In fact, some of my favorite submissions have explored the questions: What would happen if I could stop time? What exists in the water under Niagara Falls? What happens behind the faculty room door?

Questions like these give a great starting point for you to begin a story, but can also be useful to move a story forward. What mysteries are you curious about? Maybe there's a story in your answer!

Happy writing!

Challenge yourself

Wow! Where did the last two weeks go? I can't believe it has been so long since the last post. We're busy, busy, bust creating new plays every day with the students at the Summer Theatre Camp at Playwrights Theatre. I had planned to write every 7-10 days, but must've gotten wrapped up in the fun. It can be easy to loose track of time like that, which is why it is helpful to put aside some time each day to spend on your writing. Even a few minutes can make a difference, which is why I'd like to share a writing challenge begun today by young adult lit author, Laurie Halse Anderson. I thought this might be a great way to stay inspired to write your play through these last few weeks of summer and even into the school year!

Ms. Anderson is the author of books for teens like Speak, Fever 1793, and Wintergirls, among others. On her website this morning, she launched her 5th annual Write 15 Minutes a Day Challenge. You can find more information here - http://madwomanintheforest.com/wfmad-day-1-welcome-to-the-write-fifteen-minutes-a-day-challenge/. As she says on the site, there will be a new post each day meant to inspire writing. You can follow along with her posts, or you can simply make the commitment to write for 15 minutes (or more... or less...) a day!

Please feel free to share your progress in the comments section for the blog posts here at NJ Young Playwrights. If you've already begun, it would be great to hear what you have been working on so far.

Happy writing!

Let's get ready to rumble... er... write!

You may not be a wrestling fan, but the phrase is probably familiar to you: “Let’s get ready to rumbllllllllllllllllle!” Today we’re just a little under six months until the submission deadline for the 2013 New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival and its time to get writing. Specific dates and details about the 30th anniversary installment of the Festival will be posted in the coming months, but for now the best thing to do if you’re thinking about submitting a play is to get started!

There may be some of you who have an idea and are ready to dive right in, but there are others of you who may be struggling to get started. Maybe you have a lot of ideas and don’t know which to choose. Or maybe the opposite is true and you just can’t think of a thing. These are common blocks that affect every writer at some point in time. The important thing when you are struggling is to pick something and start writing. You don’t necessarily need to start with the play itself – just put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and let the ideas flow.

No matter where you are with an idea it may help to jot down a few ideas in a list, or an outline, or a synopsis. What are you interested in? What ideas come to mind when you think about a story? What kinds of plays do you like to see – OR – what kinds of stories do you like to read? Do you have an idea for a plot, or a character? (or both?) What do you want to say about the world, or to the world? What is important to you? Whatever you have in mind, wherever your brain takes you, get those ideas down on paper and see what happens. Before long you may find that you are developing an idea for a play that you feel passionate about – something that moves you deeply.

Over the next few months, I will share some ideas for writing your play from beginning to end. I hope that some of these suggestions will be helpful to you as you write, but please know that not everything that is mentioned here may work for you. There is more than one way to write a play and it is important that you figure out what works for you and what works for the story that you want to tell. With this in mind, I’ve asked a number of the playwrights, directors, actors, and other theatre folks who work with Playwrights Theatre of NJ and the NJ Young Playwrights Festival to share some of their thoughts about plays with you. I’m collecting their ideas now and will post them to the blog along with writing tips and ideas. I encourage you to share your ideas and your progress by commenting on the posts as we go. I can also be reached at njypf@ptnj.org if you have any comments that you don’t want to share publicly, or to answer any questions that you might have.

I look forward to getting started with you and to seeing the finished pieces in January.

Happy writing!

Presentation of Summer Playwriting Workshop scenes

Our three summer playwrights worked on two individual projects during this past two-week session. First, a short scene for which each playwright collaborated with two or three students from the Acting Workshop class. The second project, is a longer piece which each playwright is writing independently.

The summer playwriting class reading and critique each other's plays.



The short scenes were presented by the acting class during a final presentation this morning. Pictures from the presentation are to the left.

The longer scenes are currently in progress, but the playwrights have been encouraged to continue writing throughout the summer with the end goal of submitting the scripts to the 2013 New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival.



 On the last day of camp, the playwrights read the current draft of each classmate's script and answered basic questions provided by the author. While this is a bit earlier in the writing process than I might have liked, the playwrights enjoyed hearing other people read and respond to their work. In fact, hearing the acting class read their work was the most impactful part of the session for them. Over the next few weeks, I will read each draft and provide my own feedback, but I also hope the playwrights will continue to send drafts to me throughout the summer. Each has done remarkable work and I cannot wait to see how the plays turn out down the road!

Summer playwriting

Today begins our Summer Theatre Camp at Playwrights Theatre. For this first session, we have seven acting students and three playwriting students. The classes are working separately throughout the morning, but will come together toward the end of the session to collaborate on short scenes that will be presented as part of the acting class' final presentation. This is the first time that we are trying this arrangement with the camp classes and look forward to sharing some of that work here.

What are your plans this summmer?