Last month I was contacted by Giorgiana Lascu at the Center for Arts-Inspired Learning. She was seeking short plays for her high school aged interns to perform, record and edit as part of the ArtWorks program.She had six young women and one young man engaged in performance and video production, and asked if I had any plays that weren't bound by race, gender or age. In fact, the vast majority of my short plays are written for anyone to perform! We spent an exciting afternoon as I pitched scripts and her protégés had a great time reading and choosing from them.
ArtWorks is a job training and arts education program, a paid internship, and these high school aged kids were to direct, shoot and edit these scripts, as well as perform for each other.
Thrilling for me is how teenagers interpreted the relationships in each of these pieces. "Driver's Seat" was written with a parent and child in mind. Here they are siblings or friends, possibly people in a relationship. "Confidence" was included in Savory Taṇhā, and it is fascinating to me how social cues change between age and experience. The text lays it all out for you, the question is how do you communicate?
My favorite reaction to "High" is what my mother-in-law texted me after watching it:
"sorry" 🙄
(lol)
(lol)
"Driver's Seat"
Performed by Ta'niyah Richardson & Natozjah Johnson
"Confidence"
Performed by Yai Johnson & Miasia Wells
"High"
Performed by Al Gorman & Freddie French
Videos recorded and edited collaboratively by ArtWorks Theatre Co-Op 2020: Frederick French, Al Gorman, Yai Johnson, Natozjah Johnson, Ta'niyah Richardson, Dalaija Walker & Miasia Wells.
You can watch the entire Short Play Project here.
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