Playmakers inspire AME writers
By Diana Bogan. Islander Reporter
 |
The Magic Snow
Florida Studio Theater actors performed winning student-written plays in the media center at Anna Maria Elementary School to inspire students to write their own play for the 2006 Young Playwrights Festival. Here, FST actors perform "The Magic Snow," a poignant play penned by a Manatee County second-grader about making a wish - for a father to come home from Iraq - before the first snow hits the ground so that it will come true. |
Florida Studio Theater's Playmakers group came to Anna Maria Elementary
School to inspire second- through fifth-grade students to let their imaginations
and emotions help them carve out a good play.
Yes, once again,
it's time for the Young Playwrights Festival
competition. Each entry will receive a certificate
of achievement. Approximately 100 plays receive an
honorable mention and the Florida Studio Theatre performs
a select group of student plays at schools throughout
the area.
FST actors performed
several student-written selections from the 2005 festival
in the school's new media center, in addition
to guiding AME students in scripting scenes for on-the-spot
performances.
Through their
performance, the playmakers taught students the key
ingredients to writing a play — setting, characters,
dialogue and conflict.
This year's
plays showed students that it's OK to explore
emotions like sadness, that friends stick together,
and that you can never be too little to dream big.
Each year the
festival draws thousands of entries, and in 2005 student
entries came from students as far as Russia and Scotland.
Now in its 13th year, the program has reached one million
students.
Writers can submit
as many plays as they wish as long as they follow the
guidelines below:
- The contest
is open to all students in kindergarten through 12th-grade.
- Plays
should be one to five pages in length.
- There
is no restriction on style, subject or form.
- Collaborations
are permitted.
- Scripts
must be typed or printed and stapled or bound.
- Scripts
must have a cover page, including date of submission,
title of play, name, date of birth, home address
and phone number, school address, grade level and
teacher.
A copy of the
original play must be submitted by Feb. 13 to the Young
Playwrights Festival, Florida Studio Theatre, 1241
N. Palm Ave., Sarasota FL 34236. Scripts will not be
returned.
For more information,
call Jim Ragona at 366-9017, or visit the theater Web
site at www.fst2000.org and click on the link for "Write
a Play/In the Schools."
A new feature
of the Web site is a link for festival alumni. The
alumni page lists past winners and their current achievements.
AME
students have a history of penning winning plays.
Past Island winners interested in sharing their current
endeavors with FST can e-mail megana@fst2000.org. |
