Each year seniors at Seattle Academy participate in ACT Theatre’s Young Playwrights Program through James Watson’s fall senior English class. This year students worked with visiting teaching artist Kelleen Blanchard as they wrote one-act plays. In December Chloe Mason and Rosemary Timmons were recognized for the plays they had written.
Chloe’s play was selected to be performed by professional actors at ACT Theatre’s Festival of Young Playwrights in March. Rosemary Timmons’s play was chosen for a staged reading by Seattle Children’s Theater. Chloe and Rosemary will both work with professional directors and actors to help produce these performances.
Chloe Mason’s play, “Cubicles and Cancer,” is about a group of fantasy characters, such as orcs, and hobbits, who are playing a game a lot like the popular tabletop role-playing game, “Dungeons and Dragons.” However, this version of the game is set in the real world, not in the fantasy world they live in. Chloe wasn’t just in it for the award though. She said, “While writing the play, it was just about how to make this something I’m proud of.”
Rosemary’s play, “Remember,” tells the story of her grandmother who had Alzheimer’s and her mother who had just found out that she had cancer. The play is about Rosemary’s mother having to tell Grandma about her cancer over and over because of Grandma’s Alzheimer’s. Rosemary was pleased to have this honor, and said, “It was nice to get some recognition, especially for my writing, because that is something I am proud of but I don’t do in a non-academic setting”.
The collaboration between ACT Theatre and SAAS has been a great opportunity for students to get their work out in the world. It provides a place where people can produce great stories, and be acknowledged for them.