Madison Young Playwrights Festival - Day 1

Yesterday was the first rehearsal for the 26th annual Madison Young Playwrights Festival. This was the first meeting of the cast and we did a read-through of all five plays in the order that they will be performed on Saturday. That will be the only time that we have to go through the play in order. Scheduling conflicts and play size have created a fairly scattered schedule where we will be jumping around from play to play over the next two days. I'm hoping to get at least one walk-through at least at the end of the day tomorrow.

We enjoyed reading through the pieces and I was impressed with the quality of the revisions that the playwrights made. After plays were selected for the Festival, I did a full response for each and offered the playwrights suggestions for revisions, which was informed by the structure of the staged reading and the physical space in which we would perform. Of course the exact space was not known at the time, so I had to estimate what it might be using the three or so possibilities that we had.

Of course, we've confirmed that the Festival will take place in the auditorium of the Madison Junior School. That performance will be this Saturday, March 17 beginning at 1:00 pm. We hope you'll join us then to celebrate the playwrights' excellent work!

And please stay tuned as we post updates from rehearsals over the next few days!

State festival heads into the final round

We're almost through the second round of judging for the NJ Young Playwrights Festivals. Our selection panel is in place and we'll be sifting through the finalists over the next few weeks!

Auditioning actors

Today I'm auditioning actors from local college programs in preparation for the upcoming festival season. Thanks to everyone who auditioned. Great work!

2012 Madison Young Playwrights Festival

Playwrights Theatre is please to announce that the following plays will be presented at the 2012 Madison Young Playwrights Festival on March 17th (listed in no particular order):

It's Hard to Get a Halo by Katerina Rettino, 4th grade
Crime Scene Disaster by Kelly Notine, 6th grade
From Geek to Chic by Mollie Sullivan, 4th grade
Is it Real? by Kevin Espiritu, 6th grade
No Teachers Allowed by Ellie Culin, 5th grade

The playwrights are currently working with the Director of Education to revise their script in anticipation of the play readings in March. Congratulations to these five students and to all who wrote a play with our teaching artists this year!