McCarter to stage selected students’ one-acts.
By: Emily Craighead
Behind the scenes of "Eleven to Six" and "73 September 23rds," there are innumerable lessons for two aspiring playwrights.
West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South students Tyler Samardick and Maggie Marron are among six high school students from across the state who will see their original works directed and performed by professionals at McCarter Theatre during the Youth Ink! Play Festival in June.
"Eleven to Six," Tyler’s one-act play, is a coming-of-age tale about a boy granted a glimpse into his future.
Maggie’s play, "73 September 23rds," is a conversation between a daughter and her mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.
Their plays were selected from among 80 submitted by High School South students. Four others were chosen by the McCarter reading committee to be part of the high school’s One-Acts Festival, held last week.
The plays emerged from 10 sessions with two teaching artists from McCarter who worked with High School South English teachers Don Gilpin and Melinda Neff and their students.
The West Windsor-Plainsboro Education Foundation and the WW-P Parent Teacher Student Association helped sponsor the Youth Ink! program at High School South.
The students "benefited greatly from the quantity and quality of feedback they received during the whole process, as their drafts were read, then performed at least in part before their peers and the McCarter teaching artists," Mr. Gilpin said in an e-mail.
Tyler said he has written fragments of scripts before on his own, but he has never gone through a formal play-writing process.
"It’s the best way to get your thoughts on the paper," Tyler said. "It just gets the point across."
Maggie said this was her first play-writing venture.
"Most of my influence came from the books I read," she said. Most recently, she has been reading Sylvia Plath’s "The Bell Jar."
The goal of Youth Ink!, according to McCarter Education Associate Steven Borowka, is to acquaint students with a form of written expression other than essays, journalism or poetry.
"There are rules like in any form of writing, but we’re setting up this world for them, then they can go and do what they want," he said.
McCarter offers a program for fourth- through 10th-grade students to perform professionally written plays, but this is the only festival that featured professionals performing student-written plays.
"We’re creating plays that are for a high school audience, which a lot of adult playwrights don’t take into consideration," Mr. Borowka said.
As a result, a common theme in students’ plays was the clash between heroic children and villainous adults.
The students at High School South began writing their plays by interviewing someone. Tyler chose a friend.
Tyler’s hero, based on his friend, is a 17-year-old boy who is visited during the night by four people the Man, the Nerd, the Loser and the Guy. Each represents an incarnation of whom he might become depending on the decisions he makes.
Although Tyler said he did not have "A Christmas Carol" in mind when he wrote his play, he admitted the influence was there.
"I’ve seen it so many times that it kind of subconsciously affected me," he said.
Maggie chose to ask her mother about her relationship with Maggie’s grandmother.
In the play, the grandmother is portrayed as neglectful of her young daughter. Later, the grandmother, suffering from Alzheimer’s, asks her grown-up daughter if she was a good mother, and the daughter answers truthfully.
"My mom was saying she kind of regretted being honest at that time," Maggie said. "It was one thing she wished she could take back."
Many of the 180 student plays from the five participating schools explored family dynamics or questions about the future that haunt them as they contemplate graduating from high school, according to Mr. Borowka.
"A lot of kids were able to tell a story that they needed to tell about their own lives," he said. "From a non-theater point of view, it was therapeutic."
The work isn’t over for Tyler and Maggie. They will work with directors Rob Kimbro and Daniel Brunet to polish their plays before rehearsals begin May 26.
Maggie said she wants to refine her depictions of the two characters in her play.
"I wanted to change it to be more realistic," Maggie said. "My mom said (Maggie’s grandmother) was much more educated and much more intelligent than I made her seem. … Most of all, I feel like I want to make it mean something more to my mom."
Tyler, meanwhile, said he plans to make his play’s ending less ambiguous, a following a suggestion from his director, Mr. Kimbro.
"I’m very humbled" by Mr. Kimbro, Tyler said. "I think he knows what’s best for the play much better than I do."
The students will retain creative control over their plays, even after rehearsals begin.
The festival will also feature plays by students from Hopewell Valley High School, St. Mary of the Assumption High School, Pascack Valley Central High School and Pascack Hills High School.
Rehearsals begin May 26, and the shows will run 7 p.m. June 10 and 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. June 11 in "The Room" at McCarter Theatre. Tickets are free but seating is limited. Reservations can be made by calling (609) 258-2787.

