A reading from Playwrights Project's Out of the Yard program included in Write Out Loud's NEA Big Read Event !
Playwrights Project's Out of the Yard participants at Donovan Correctional Facility wrote scenes inspired by Kelly Link's book Pretty Monsters, as part of Write Out Loud's NEA Big Read project.
Out of the Yard participant Michael Stillman won Write Out Loud's Short Story & Poetry Writing Contest with his script Billy and Willow, which will be read at their event tonight, Friday May 4th at 5:30pm at San Diego Writers INK. Out of the Yard participants Derek Damiano (Purse), Glenn Jefferson (The Goat and the Book), and Santa Feathers (Sammy and Cynthia) received Honorable Mentions.
This event is free and open to the public!
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Playwright Spotlight:
Thelma Virata de Castro
We are so proud of Playwrights Project's Community Programs Coordinator Thelma de Castro. In addition to her successes as an accomplished playwright, Thelma is also the founder of San Diego Playwrights, a volunteer group striving to get local playwrights' work produced.
The San Diego Foundation announced earlier this week that Thelma is a recipient of the 2018 Creative Catalyst Grant! Thelma is partnering with Asian Story Theater to produce a script that explores domestic violence within the Filipino community to "give a voice to the voiceless and connect the audience to the issue of domestic violence in a safe, intimate setting."
Can't wait to see Thelma's work? You don't have to!
Thelma's play Bachelor Moon will receive a staged reading on Monday, May 7th
at 8:00pm at Ocean Beach Playhouse. The FLIP Side: A Night of FOB-ulous Theatre will feature the work of seven Filipino theatre artists and is produced by the MaArte Theatre Collective. Tickets can be purchased through Brown Paper Tickets!
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Encourage the students in your life to enter
the California Young Playwrights Contest
The deadline for Playwrights Project's 34th annual California Young Playwrights Contest is fast approaching! California students 18 and under are welcome to submit their plays; all entrants who request comments on their scripts will receive a letter with customized feedback from a theatre professional. Contest winners receive a professional production of their scripts at the Plays by Young Writers Festival held in January at The Old Globe Theatre. The deadline to submit is June 1st, 2018.
For more information or to submit a script, please visit our website
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Student script read at Town Hall!
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Actors Arusi Santi and Jyl Kaneshiro
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Playwrights Project partnered with Advocates for Change Today, a youth lead group organized by SAY San Diego to spread awareness about drug and alcohol abuse prevention. Advocates for Change Today hosted a Town Hall event for teenagers to learn more about health and well-being, as well as education on the dangers of substance abuse. Scripts from Playwrights Project's school residencies were performed by professional actors. We love seeing this upcoming generation's enthusiasm and leadership!
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at San Diego State University
Playwrights Project and San Diego State University presented Beyond Prison Walls April 12-15th as part of our sixth annual Collage collaboration with SDSU. The performances consisted of staged readings written by incarcerated playwrights at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility through Playwrights Project's Out of the Yard program. The staged readings were performed by SDSU student actors and professional actors, and were directed by SDSU alumna Olivia Espinosa, who has a long history of involvement with Playwrights Project.
Each performance was followed by a talk-back with panelists, featuring leadership and program providers from Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, theatre and criminal justices professors from SDSU, former Out of the Yard program participants, and the cast.
Audience praise for the event included: "The work produced, and the discussion that followed, gave me interesting insights into how certain experiences can inform and shape creative expression. While being incarcerated is certainly challenging, it doesn't necessarily shut creative doors, and in fact, I suspect that some of the best moments in the work I saw could not have been written by anyone who hadn't experienced those particular challenges."
"The most surprising part of the event was the feeling of familiarity, which was essentially the universality of the human experience. And it was so beautiful to be in the presence of such meaningful storytelling for voices that are not often heard, let alone given a stage to be seen by the public."
Did you see Beyond Prison Walls? Click here to take our survey!
Playwrights Project collaborated with local universities to present staged readings of Sisters in the System by Tori Rice. Sisters in the System depicts the journey through the foster care system and the challenges that it presents. CSUSM student Ingrid Trovao directed student actors from CSUSM and Palomar College.
Sisters in the System was presented at CSUSM in partnership with ACE Scholars, at Palomar College in partnership with the Women's Studies department, and at Mesa College in partnership with FAST Scholars as part of their Foster Youth Awareness week.
Sisters in the System in the News!
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