Edward Albee ‘46 Leads Workshops for Playwriting Participants
By Elizabeth Gribkoff ‘09
News Staff Reporter
On March 25th and 26th, aspiring student directors, writers, actors, and stage crew headed down to the Paul Mellon Arts Center in order to attend workshops led by the brilliant playwright, Edward Albee ‘46. The workshops were intended for Choate students participating in the 15th annual Student Playwriting Festival.
Mr. Paul Tines, head of the Arts Department, created the Student Playwriting Festival as a way to help students gain experience in all aspects of the production of a play; students do everything from writing the play to directing it to performing it. Participants are selected by Ms. Tracy Ginder-Delventhal, a Choate drama teacher, who reviews plays and applications and “make(s) a determination of what would be the best line-up of crew-people, staff people, and of scripts, though this year Mr. Albee was also involved in the process of choosing scripts.” The four plays selected this year were, “Michael, Michael, Michael” by Regina DePietro ’07, “Fun and Games” by Mark Messing ’08, “Divided We Fall” by Katie Hartsoe ’06, and “The Importance of Manners” by Alex Kveton ’06. This is the first year an individual outside of the Choate community has worked with the students.
Mr. Tines invited Mr. Albee to come back to Choate with the hope that “....the company (of students in the festival) would get a bird’s eye-view into what it’s like to make a living in professional theater,” as Ginder-Delventhal put it. Albee certainly is in a position to give input on what the world of professional theatre is truly like, since he is the famous writer of plays such as “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “The Zoo Story” and has been writing plays since his days at Choate. He has previous experience working with students since he taught at the University of Houston for fifteen years, though for Albee “classes were something [he] had to attend so [he] could major in extracurricular activities.”
At the workshops, Mr. Albee told the students stories about his years of making a living through theatre. “He discussed his experience as a playwright in the professional world, giving us pointers about what to do (develop the characters before putting them in a play situation) and what not to do (change a play to make it more palatable for a mass audience),” said stage manager Amy Gobel ’08. Albee later had students perform read-throughs of their plays, which “helped us learn what wasn’t natural, since I had never heard my play spoken before,” said playwright Regina DePietro. Albee was constantly questioning students in order to get them to think about what they really wanted to accomplish with their scripts, directing, and acting, and, according to actor Caila Koster ’09, “in the end [Albee] answered questions we asked him.”
Was it daunting to have one’s plays critiqued by a man who has won the Pulitzer Prize three times? Charlotte Madere ’07 felt “he wasn’t overbearing, but it was kind of intimidating.” After all, Albee wasn’t afraid to tell students when he felt a scene was missing something, and he certainly didn’t butter up the participants.
Instead, Albee brought “new energy and views to our characters,” said Koster. All students partaking in the Playwriting Festival agreed that having a perspective from someone outside the drama department was extremely beneficial, and everyone took his advice seriously. Madere learned “how important it is that the playwright and director make sure they’re on the same page.” He made DePietro “realize that some things were missing that no one else was willing to point out.” It is apparent that having a well-known playwright tell you that you need to change the ending of your script is an experience that most high school writers will never experience. But, as DePietro stated, “He made me feel proud to be a writer.”
