News Staff Reporter
What exactly is the Student Playwriting Festival? According to Tracy Ginder-Delventhal, Choate’s acting and directing teacher, it is when “every year, students from the community write, direct, design, crew, and act in plays that reflect their aesthetic views and voice.” Auditions will be held just after spring break, specifically on the 21st and 22nd or March. Rehearsals will start on the 23rd. As Ginder-Delventhal cheerfully explains, “everyone is invited to get involved.” She says that her job is to read over the script submissions, and ultimately “choose the plays and ‘hire’ the staff.” Although there was an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response this year, she was only able to mount four pieces. Like the student directed scenes, this is a performance produced entirely by the students.
As of now, the students associated with the student playwriting festival consist of four playwrights and four directors. “Rising Without Wings,” by Francisca DaSilveira ‘10 is being directed by Meredith Mosbacher ‘07; Nathaniel Moore ‘08 is directing “The Sanitarium,” by Elizabeth Walbridge ‘07; Alex Salzman is directing Regina DePietro ‘07’s “Pseudodementia”; and Benjamin Firke ‘08’s “Battle of Yalesville” is being directed by Hanna Kregling ‘07. According to Walbridge, being a playwright has been quite an exhilarating experience. She claims that “it marks the end of 4 years of being involved in Choate theater,” and that she is “so thrilled to have the chance to do one more thing that [she has] always wanted to do.” She also encouraged the actors and actresses at Choate to “audition as much as [they] can if [they] are truly passionate.” The play she wrote is “The Sanitarium,” which is “basically [her] world, in an asylum, without restriction, and with an unsuspecting nurse-in-training.” Moore, who is directing “Shot in the Dark,” states that directing “has helped [him] learn to formulate [his] thoughts.”
Walbridge says that her favorite part of rehearsals is when “the actors drop the scripts and start to work.” She exclaims that “it’s a wonderful feeling to see the play “come alive” for the first time.” The experience of working with the cast and crew of the student playwriting festival has been rewarding to producer Ginder-Delventhal as well. She says that “it¹s exciting to watch a young director problem solve the best way of telling a story.” She also claims that it is a pleasure to watch “people work outside of their comfort zone and accomplish things they weren¹t sure they could.”
Regina DePietro ‘07, whose play, “Pseudodementia,” was chosen for the second consecutive year says, “It was a lot easier to write a play the second time because I now know what works best on stage. My second play, which focuses on a chronic liar being interrogated in jail, is in real time and only has three characters, so it should be interesting to see on stage.”
Also according to Ginder-Delventhal, “we are the only one of our sisters schools who hold a student playwriting festival.” When asked to give a brief advertisement of the festival, she explained that “the performances begin on a sheet of blank paper and grow into reflections of your views, abilities, needs and dreams.” She hopes that “everyone will come share in the experience.”
The student playwriting festival is clearly a manifestation of amazing talent that students possess in the field of theater. It will be held in the Joan Harris Gelb Theater from the 10th to the 12th of May at 7:30 PM. Students are greatly encouraged to audition, and it will be an enjoyable experience as well as a source of entertainment for the audience.
