Through the Young Playwrights Project, PlayGround and Bay Area high schools partner to enable young writers to find their own expressive voice through the creation, development, and production of short plays.
With a generous planning grant from the California Arts Council Artists-in-Schools program, PlayGround has recently begun taking its unique playwright development efforts into Bay Area high schools this spring as part of the PlayGround Young Playwrights Project.
The three schools involved in the pilot project were San Francisco Arts Academy at SOTA, Berkeley High School and Tamalpais High School. Select students at each school worked with PlayGround playwrights on a series of playwriting master classes, introducing the students to aspects of theatrical writing and the unique qualities of the ten-minute play. Following the master classes, students had the opportunity to write their own original ten-minute plays inspired by a single topic ("Star-Crossed Lovers") and to develop several of these works for presentation before their fellow students as script-in-hand staged readings a la Monday Night PlayGround. Ultimately, PlayGround hopes to include some of the student works in future Best of PlayGround Festivals at Zeum.
PlayGround recently received another significant grant toward the full launch of the Young Playwrights Project -- this one a challenge grant from the Miranda Lux Foundation (www.mirandalux.org). To meet the challenge, PlayGround must raise $30,000 in private donations before the end of the academic year. To help with the challenge grant, click on a link below to make a secure online donation to PlayGround through either Network for Good or PayPal, or contact us via email or by phone (see below) for more options. Note: Designated gifts of $1,000 or more and/or supplemental gifts from those already pledging $500 or more will be applied to the Lux Foundation challenge.
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