Philadelphia Young Playwrights
Resident Playwrights
2016-17 Resident Playwrights
Daniel Dwyer
Grade 9, Lower Merion Residency play: Unity Not Neutrality
Jerry, a U.N. Intelligence operative with a good sense of humor, is left alone in a city after a nuclear war. He lives in a Hab covered in rubble at the edge of the ghost city. He thinks he may be the only one left on earth until he rescues a kid. Peter has lost his family to the hands of Jerry’s very enemies. He is determined to get revenge. Beatrice has been raised by a family of raiders who believe in fascism. They intend to repopulate the human race without war by marrying their children together. Beatrice (a young badass who hates killing) escapes that life only to be captured with a familiar face she that bonds with and eventually falls in love with until she realizes that her dark past has done something unforgivable that scars for life. Cassie and her little brother Ablie have been travelling for a year. Cassie is extremely smart and is very protective of her brother but when crossing dangerous borders, she is involved in the crossfire of a war between care and crime.
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Helen Everbach
Grade 12, Strath Haven Residency play: The King & Her Princess
Drag is everything to Elle. A gender non-conforming kid from an unhappy home, becoming a drag king in college saved him and continues to save him now that he’s in his thirties and performs professionally. Lila is an eighteen-year-old feminist and from what the girls in her women’s group say, drag is culturally appropriative and wrong. So why does Elle have to be so sexy? Or is it drag that’s really sexy? |
Gabi Greco
Grade 9, Upper Darby Residency play: Title TBD More info coming soon. |
Emma O'Neill-Dietel
Grade 12, Masterman Residency play: All The Things I Wish I'd Told My Sister About Emma: Emma O’Neill-Dietel is a senior at Masterman High School. She has been involved with Philadelphia Young Playwrights since sixth grade when PYP led a playwriting workshop in her class. Emma would like to thank her family, and especially her sister, Anna, who she adores to no end. x
AIDEN As long as I’m here, she might not even exist. She could be a… a figment of my imagination. Haven’t talked to her, haven’t seen her. CAL You realize how stupid that sounds, right? You have a sister. You’re so lucky, even if you don’t get along all the time. I’ve been dying to have a little sister since I was born! AIDEN Yeah, when I was a kid I liked having one too. But we’re not kids anymore. |
Darius Purnell
Grade 12, Science Leadership Academy Residency play: The Existence of Good & Evil Excerpt: "You haven't fooled me. You want to be evil, you have yet to fight back. And don't give me that passifist bullshit. Any creature if cornered and toyed with enough -- will indeed attack back. Yet, you just let this all happen, Damian. This is your mind. You are supposed to be in control. Then it hit to me. All this time, I thought I was in control but I'm apart of you. So in the end you have full control, Damian. There's no fighting it, this is all you." |
Maya Peniazek
Grade 12, Philadelphia Creative and Performing Arts High Residency play: The Liberation (working title) 200 years into the future, the air is not safe to breathe. The “others” have been institutionalized, the intellectuals have been eliminated, the constitution has been rewritten, and the United States and Russia team up against the world for the most extraordinary cold war in the planet’s history. But revolution thrives. In the small, unmonitored corners in the age of ultimate control, the insurrection is alive and well. The Liberation is a play following the lives of the people with the potential to lead it. Before they can give into sedition, they must reject everything they know about the war, and sacrifice the comfort of ignorance. An excerpt of the play, performed for the Future is Female festival at Headlong Studio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEOdyOHSUCs&t=20s To fully experience the story, please feel free to familiarize yourself with some of the poetry and music featured throughout the play. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKrkoC89myXwI4P4JkyVzFX2ReJJcDPS8 |
Ellery Schiller
Grade 12, Masterman Residency play: God & Orgasms x
RAZIELA I guess, I guess I really want the godly milkshake, but I’m afraid that it doesn’t exist and that the milk that makes it is never as pure as could exist. But it would be the biggest let down in the world to have to accept that this milkshake doesn’t exist. At the same time, if I ever found this milkshake, every other milk-made thing in the world would suck ass in comparison. So I can’t ever find the godly milkshake but I also can’t stop myself from looking. But my fear, it makes the looking part suck ass too. |
Erinda Sheno Grade 11, Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush Residency play: Dinner at 6:30 Albert and Sandra are excited to host their old friends, George and Diana, for dinner after having moved away from Maryland two years ago. The couples -- and their children -- find joy in reuniting and seeing each other well off. But as the evening progresses, bottles and wine glasses empty, lips loosen, and tensions rise. Each character is faced with a question: how do you move on from a difficult past that is so present, so alive, that it’s as if it’s taking a seat at your table? |
Zamira Sigel-Kulick
Grade 9, Academy at Palumbo Residency play: Title TBD More info coming soon. |
Elena Webber
Grade 9, Science Leadership Academy Beeber Campus Residency play: Turbulence in Zone 3 More info coming soon. |