Saturday, September 18, 2021 | 4:00PM
In Person at The Historic Palace Theatre
$10 Per Person
It’s here! Our 2021 Playwrighting Festival for Young Writers Showcase, featuring our four finalists and their new plays.
Limited Capacity! Masks are required for all patrons regardless of vaccination status.
Meet Our 2021 Finalists:
Red by Violet Baker (Age 12)
It’s 1887 and Grace Wilson seems like the luckiest fifteen-year-old girl in the world. She goes to Castlers Finishing School For Young Ladies and is in the top of her class. Meanwhile, though, in the woods behind the school trouble is brewing. Fifteen-year-old Ava (known as Red) has lived in a deserted horse barn with her older sister, Winona, little sister, Maria (“Ria”) and father for her entire life. But when her father and older sister goes missing, Ava is left to take care of Ria. A chance encounter between Grace and Red sets in motion a series of events resulting in the discovery that everything is not what it seems.
Wasting Earth Minutes by Maya Abraham (Age 14)
Pollux is an alien from Venus who has been sent on a mission to earth. Her friend Gemini has decided to have a “human themed” birthday party. Pollux is charged with going to earth to get all the supplies. When Pollux lands at Target, she is totally confused by all the “strange earthly things” (razors? toilet paper??). A chance encounter with Jenna, a sassy and skeptical target employee, leads to the most unlikely of friendships, as Pollux desperately tries to complete the mission.
Dear Future Self by Maxine Ting (Age 16)
Jane and Otis cross paths when they find out they are both writing letters to their future selves in a room which won’t let them leave till they finish writing their letter. What discoveries will be made about themselves and each other?
No Exodus by Alethea Shirilan-Howlett (Age 18)
The year is 1995, there’s a horrible thunderstorm outside and Wendy Symmonds and her daughter Ruth are having a dysfunctional Passover seder at their home in Syracuse, New York. In attendance is Ruth’s visionary and slightly eccentric friend from camp, Oscar, her overworked, almost-graduated best friend Paige, and Wendy’s best friend, Carmen. The night becomes tense when Oscar brings up Ruth’s summer project- a series of paintings of a piano in the house that her mother won’t let her touch. As the order of the seder progresses, tensions increase between Ruth and her mother.
When the storm reaches its peak, it brings a sudden power outage before leaving a guest from Wendy’s past in the doorway. No Exodus examines the personal and cultural stakes of holding onto and letting go of the past and the stories we tell about it.
