THEATRE PREVIEW

“PLAYWRIGHTS PROJECT”

Published in KPBS On Air Magazine January 1991

Every child has to leave home eventually.

Last year, the Playwrights Project packed its bags and left its "parent group," the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company. Originally called the California Young Playwrights Project, the program was founded in 1985 by Deborah Salzer, as an outreach venture of the GQTC, co-sponsored by the San Diego City Schools. But now, she says, "we have our own directions to go in. I just couldn't fully support the artistic and management decisions made at the theater." (For awhile, the GQTC itself couldn't support its artistic/management decisions, and, in heavy debt, was forced to suspend operations from last May to November).

Salzer was ready to move beyond a commitment to working only with “young” playwrights. Now, as a separate, independent not-for-profit corporation, the Playwrights Project (with Salzer as Executive Director) has a mission "to nurture dramatic writing in people of all ages." The annual, statewide young playwright's contest continues, with a professional production of the winning scripts. And the Project still offers school workshops and staff development: Professional directors, performers and playwrights go into Southern California schools to teach playwriting skills to students age 10-19.

Salzer recently started two Intergenerational programs. She began last January with an 8-week playwriting course -- taught by Annie Hinton, local actor, writer and teacher -- at the Oasis Center, an educational and cultural meeting-place for seniors, located at Robinson's in Horton Plaza.

Then there's the Partering Program, which links young dramatists with seniors. This idea was born when Salzer moved her 75 year-old mother into a senior hospital/residence, and realized that all the seniors had stories to tell. So she paired a few older storytellers with younger people (theater professionals, at first) who served as interviewers, scribes and dramatic writers. The result was five 10-minute scenes, performed by actors last fall at Kearny Mesa Convalescent Hospital. (Salzer's mother, unfortunately, didn't live to see the realization of the program she inspired). The next step for Salzer is to pair new young playwrights with storytelling seniors.

Meanwhile, her attention is focused on the young playwrights who've worked out their own material. Plays by Young Writers '90 runs January 16-27 at the Bowery Theatre's Kingston Playhouse, as part of the theater's Community Collaboration (outreach) program. One hundred seventy-nine scripts were submitted statewide, the largest number in the history of the Young Writers competition. Of the five winning one-act plays, three playwrights hailed from San Diego; two are from Poway High School.

Poway is one of the Project's biggest success stories. After a staff development workshop was presented at the high school several years ago, an active Playwriting Club was started, and the school initiated its own playwriting contest. Two of those winners also won the statewide Plays by Young Writers competition.

The current president of the Young Playwrights Club at Poway High School is Rachel Balko, age 16. Her first play, “Also Known As...” is one of this year's winners. It concerns a young woman who attempted suicide, was committed to a psychiatric hospital, and is now trying to convince a psychiatrist that she's not crazy.

It's been quite an experience for the playwright. First, there was the issue of the title. The original was "Exhausted, Depressed and Sexually Frustrated." When she won Poway High School's Playwriting Contest last March, Rachel was forced to change the title (too suggestive, she was told; she switched to "Untitled"). Then, she had to cut out all the swearing, eliminate the word "transvestite," and re-write a whole section of the script. Ironically, the school newspaper was permitted to publish all the words that she couldn't keep in her play.

"I was so mad," Balko says. "The principal went through the script with a yellow marker." Balko's original script has been reinstated for the Young Playwrights production this month, but the title had to go -- again. Producer Salzer apparently felt it was, according to Balko, "too telling. It summed everything up in one sentence. She was insistent on the change so I made it. But I can't believe this piece has had three titles in one year."

Well, part of the point of the statewide contest is to allow young playwrights to get a feel for "the real thing," and Balko is certainly getting a true-to-life exposure to the arts world, circa 1991.

The other winning plays are:

“When Reality Refuses to Cooperate” by Robert Sayles, age 16, a senior at Poway High School. A high school boy confronts a disturbing childhood sexual experience.

“The Shakespeare Club” by Adam Stein, 18, a graduate of La Jolla High School, currently a sophomore at Yale University: A humorous exploration of identity through a contemporary confrontation of five Shakespearan characters.

“A Haunted Place” by Gordon Cox, 16, a junior at Santa Barbara High School. A family moves into a haunted house, and learns to let go of ghosts in their present and past.

“For My Very Dust is Laughing,” a humorous piece by Aaron Thomas, age 17, a senior at Etiwanda High School in Rancho Cucamonga: An irreverent requiem concerning lemmings, laundry and death.

©1991 Patté Productions Inc.