“Getting payback because of what happened isn't going to benefit you at all. Closure? It's not going to help you with closure... Tito... TITO! Come back! You better not walk out that... (she grabs her coat and car keys)..." Each spring, Young Playwrights partners with InterAct Theatre Company to produce the Young Voices Monologue Festival, featuring the work of talented high school students in the City of Philadelphia. A collection of vibrant and diverse perspectives, Young Voices taps into the energy of what it means to be a young person in our city today, now, in this very moment. With subjects ranging from college admission, young love, and neglectful parents to gender identity, abuse, and the state of the city at large, Young Voices honors the experiences, challenges, and triumphs of young people from throughout Philadelphia, placing their voices center stage for audiences from around the region to experience firsthand. This year’s Festival was no different. Adrian Vega, a sophomore at Nueva Esperanza Academy, drew inspiration from not only his personal experience with loss, but also books and music to write his monologue about a brother seeking revenge and a mother's desperate plea to stop him. “I wanted to write a monologue to show people that having drug wars and people into drugs should be prevented especially from teenagers in our society.” With the help of the Knight Foundation, we want our Young Voices to start a national conversation. Check out the video about Adrian's experience, and then watch “Payback” in action at the 2015 Young Voices Monologue Festival.
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Read The Article HERE BY: Peter Crimmins for WHYY On Saturday, Philadelphia Young Playwrights will stage dramatic readings of plays by young authors in its Paula Vogel Mentorship Program. Five promising young writers were matched with an established playwright for a year to write a workable script. All are in high school, except for Ethan Brunton, 20, a student at Montgomery County Community College. His play, "Hades and Persephone: Letters from Hell and Back," is about the relationship between the Greek god of the underworld and his young bride. Brunton wrote it with sympathy for the devil. "He's by the book, he's reasonable, he holds true to his deals, he loves his wife," said Brunton. "The most you can get out of him as being an angry guy is because some of the people he has to work with agitate him." Brunton lives with autism. He had been writing short plays through a program for adults on the spectrum at Theatre Horizon in Norristown. He was approached by Philadelphia Young Playwrights to take on a more ambitious writing project through its mentorship program. ALUMNI PROFILE: Emily Acker"Crossing Boundaries" by: Jesse Bernstein EMILY ACKER was a junior in high school and had just returned from living in Israel when she decided to write a drama about a Palestinian boy and an Israeli boy who fall in love. It was her first play. Milk and Honey was a winner in the 2008 Philadelphia Young Playwrights Festival contest. Local theatre artist David Bradley was assigned as dramaturge and director for the a staged reading of the play at Temple University. He took the helm again when PYP later produced a fully-staged, professional production in 2010. As has happened again and again throughout its history, Philadelphia Young Playwrights launched a new voice and created a valuable and on-going collaboration. After high school, Emily attended Northwestern University and spent some time spent in Chicago before returning to Philadelphia to work as a professional playwright. Among other projects, she is a founding member of the playwrights collective Orbiter 3. She also wears many hats for PYP, including being the Literary Manager of the Paula Vogel Mentors Projects and the Programming Director for the PYP Alumni Council. Sometimes, she just likes "to go to [PYP's] offices and hang out. It's not technically squatting if they let you in." David directs at theaters throughout the Philadelphia area and has deepened his involvement with PYP. Most recently, he helped organize and oversee the 1219 Project and this summer he will once again lead a revisions lab. As he says, "I love seeing myself as an ongoing collaborator with Young Playwrights." To say that they're both busy artists with diverse projects in the works is an understatement. However, as the PYPAC found when we caught up with them, the collaboration that began with Milk and Honey is alive and well to this day. As, apparently, are Emily's emails from 2008... |
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