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Writing and Rewriting History |
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 New Writers
Now!
How does theater help us explore and express our
history?
June's New Writers
Now! focuses on student writing that dramatizes
and reimagines historical events. Writing from YPT's
year-long residency with Claremont Immersion Elementary
School fourth graders will be highlighted, including
The True Story of Jamestown: How They Lived and What
They Wanted, and original pieces on the Civil War
and Civil Rights movement.
FREE
Monday, June 8, 2009
7:00
PM
GALA Hispanic Theatre
3333 14th Street
NW
Washington, DC 20010
New Writers Now! features
professional actors in a staged reading of student plays
fresh from the classroom, followed by a community
discussion about the plays with the playwrights. Young
writers discover the value of sharing their work and
recognize that the community is invested in the stories
they tell.
Lead sponsorship of the 2008-2009
season of New Writers Now! provided by the All
Souls-Beckner Advancement
Fund. |
| Press for
"Choosing Change" |
|
YPT's recent play "Choosing Change" written in
collaboration with the DC juvenile justice system has
garnered a lot of coverage in the local press:
 WAMU 88.5 Metro Connection,
May 15, 2009
Click here
to hear the story reported by Stephanie Kaye
on Metro
Connection. Behind
Bards: Oak Hill Students Choose
Change
By Rebecca Blatt
Current
Columnist
"Choosing Change," on stage
this week at the GALA Hispanic Theatre, begins with a
blast of music, the smash of a gavel and a simple
line:
"Once upon a time I made a
choice, and there was a change."
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| Madison Leathers |
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 Promising
Playwright
Madison Leathers is a ninth grader at Capital City
Public Charter School. She is a member of the Young
Playwrights' Workshop, participating in both the
Tuesday acting sessions and the Wednesday
playwriting group.
She lives with her mom, dad, and little brother in
Northeast DC, in the neighborhood of Woodbridge.
She enjoys softball, skateboarding and playing the
piano, violin and guitar. She has been playing the
acoustic guitar since she was in the 5th grade and plans
to use her stipend from the workshop to buy an electric
guitar. "I need it for my band Romeo is Dead,"
she says. The rock group has five members and
plays both original songs and cover songs. Madison
co-wrote their song Just Walk Away with band
member Melissa Paiz.
In a few years Madison hopes to attend either
Berkeley or NYU to study writing, music or forensic
science.
Her writing was featured at the April 20th New Writers
Now! Theater of the Next Generation. "My
parents were impressed. They really liked it," Madison
said. "They not only liked that my writing was in it,
but also the questions that the evening raised."
The following monologue by Madison was featured at
the evening performance on April 20th:
I don't want to live my life staring at a
screen. I want to feel theater and the presence
of people all around me. I want to see their emotions,
hear the laughter and live it up. I want what I
am looking at to connect with me and I want to know
who and what I'm dealing with. I want to cry and for
someone to understand why. Theater doesn't happen on a
screen. Theater happens all around me: in my mind, in
my book, in the ear buds of my Ipod. Theater happens
in my room when I'm doing a one woman play of Romeo
and Juliet. Theater is in my amp when I am thrashing
out on my guitar. My theater is in my eyes, in my
smile, on the sidewalk when I see the coolest dressed
lady walking by. Theater is in my pen when I write a
song, poem or am working on a
story.
To make a donation to support the work of
future Promising Playwrights click here.
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