 Photo: Vivian Klotz Our First Bilingual Blog Post for Our First Bilingual Workshops
Nuestro Primer Aporte de Blog Bilingüe Para Nuestros Primeros Talleres Bilingües By: Sarah Stearns Acabo de concluir una serie de talleres en la dramaturgia bilingüe con Mighty Writers El Futuro, un nuevo sitio bilingüe en el Italian Market. Traje actores profesionales a la fin-de-año celebración de Mighty Writers donde dieron vida a un grupo de monólogos locos, chiflados, y chistosos con compromiso admirable. Mirar las caras de los estudiantes cuando se presentaban sus obras fue precioso. La mayoría de los estudiantes querrían compartir sus obras anónimamente, un deseo que no es raro para artistas jóvenes compartiendo sus obras públicamente por primera vez en nuestras programas. Habían muchas risitas nerviosas y sonrisas pequeñas de orgullo que mostraban la alegría que los estudiantes tenían en expresarse.
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 Photo: Mary Reindorp By: Sarah Stearns
Young Playwrights Teaching Artist Apprentice My fellow Teaching Artist Apprentice Jasmine and I have spent much of this past fall and winter learning how to be better teaching artists. In nineteen classrooms at eight middle schools, we’ve honed our skills, leading middle school students through the ins and outs of monologue writing in preparation for the Middle School Monologue Festival. At the festival in March, twelve winning monologues written by middle school playwrights will be performed by professional actors at Interact Theatre Company. We’ve worked with groups as small as four students at Mighty Writers in South Philly and as big as forty at Holy Child Academy in Drexel Hill. We’ve worked with fifth graders through eighth graders. We’ve worked with groups where every single playwright wanted to share every word she had written; and in classrooms where the sentence “Anyone want to read for the class?” was met with downcast eyes and panicked whispering.  Young Playwrights’ Resident Teaching Artist Kate McGrath wears many hats: she is an educator, playwright, and dramaturg, whose work for--what’s that, you say?—what is a dramaturg?
Good question. As part of the Young Voices process, winning student playwrights work closely with a director, professional actors, and a dramaturg to develop their work and to prepare it for performance. An elusive position, a dramaturg—like Kate—is a wearer of many hats. Since it is a crucial part of the Young Voices process and a unique opportunity for our student playwrights to experience the development of new work, we asked Kate, who is one of three dramaturgs working with students for Young Voices, to explain her role as a dramaturg to find out what exactly that means for the process of taking Young Voices page to the stage.  Mindy Early, Director for Education and Program Services, shares her reflection and revision tips following the How I Learned to Write Festival….
As I mentioned in my last post, I had the absolute pleasure and honor of directing a play by an amazing young playwright for the How I Learned to Write Festival, a program created by Philadelphia Young Playwrights. During the weeklong process, I can only hope this talented young writer learned as much from me as I did from her. That’s my favorite part of new play development – through the process of bringing a new play to life, everyone in the room learns about the art form from one another. The conversations both inside and outside the rehearsal room are great for remembering, too. As we tackle a world that’s never existed before and we explore how best to bring that world to life, we think back. To past experiences, to past lessons, and to past mentors, all which guided us at one time or another. When we offer these kernels of wisdom from the past to our fellow artists in the present, we honor our mentors by paying their mentorship forward. For me, the How I Learn to Write Festival was rich in remembering. In particular, I remembered two long-forgotten revision prompts from two of my greatest mentors. I was thrilled that one of the prompts was of great help to my young playwright, and I hope that all of the prompts I share below will help any writers out there who are wrestling with revision. Click HERE to read the full blog…. |
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