By Martin Renzhofer
In the creative process, a writer bares emotions. Writers are also often insecure.
So, when a burgeoning writer, such as Bedford High junior Jackie Altman, submits a play for the school’s third annual Playwright’s Festival, it is accompanied by more than a little trepidation. There is, in the end, reward.
“Especially when we’re work-shopping the play,” Altman said. “Other people are reading it and giving suggestions. I don’t really want to change this. This is my baby. I kind of learned it was for the better.”
On Friday, May 10, at 7 pm, Altman and five other writers will have their 10-minute plays performed in the BHS auditorium. The plays are written, directed, designed, and acted by students.
The emphasis is on the written word with plays also submitted by Charlie Anderson, Natasha Ferguson, Jillian Guetersloh, Willa Potter, and Lucy Santiago.
Bedford Choral and Theater Director Katrina Faulstich has been pleased with the quality of the submissions.
“Writing a 10-minute play is hard,” she said. “Students see that as they start to write. They have good ideas but writing dialogue is different than writing a story. Then there’s the experience of what it’s like to have it performed onstage.”
The program’s subject matter ranges from the comedy of four actors playing lettuce to the drama of high school experience, such as Altman’s “New Beginnings.”
“It made me feel really happy,” said Altman who wrote “New Beginnings” for the festival. She will also perform her award-winning History Fair performance about Irena Sendler, a Polish humanitarian and member of the Polish Underground during World War II who was instrumental in aiding Jews is German-occupied Warsaw.
“I wrote ‘New Beginnings’ for fun,” Altman said. “My friends said you should show this to people. I was, ‘Would people really be interested?’ Then, after auditions, when everybody came up and I want to be in your play, that made me feel really good.”
Faulstich, now in her seventh year at Bedford, modeled the Playwright’s Festival after witnessing the success of the same program at Newton North. The larger school has a three-night block of performances and between 30 and 40 play submissions.
They perform in a black box theater setting, which is a small, spare space with black walls and a flat floor. The format is also given to audience interaction after the performance. Faulstich has also scheduled time for an audience question and answer period.
All six of the stage plays submitted for the Bedford festival were work-shopped, then accepted.
“We’re not as big as Newton North so we won’t have as many submissions,” Faulstich said. “But I’d like to see more people involved, eight or ten each time.
“I wanted to do something more structured, mostly student driven. I wanted to create the process of writing a play like in the real world.”
The process begins in the fall with a writing workshop taught by Jill Butler. Students submit plays and then begin the process of editing and re-writing. Then, actors, directors, and designers are chosen.
Auditions were held in March, followed by six weeks of rehearsals.
Bedford sophomore Willa Potter wrote the play “Moonshadow”, which was inspired by the Cat Stevens’ song. It envisions a scenario between a blind woman talking to a man recently diagnosed with ALS.
“This man is really down on life,” she said. “By the end of the conversation, the man decides he going to try and practice optimism and survive as long as he can.”
Potter wrote the play during a long flight from Seattle. She has used the female character before.
“I don’t necessarily see myself in her as much as I would appreciate having her in my life,” Potter said.
Potter, who hopes to become a novelist, said she is, generally, not great at accepting constructive criticism, but was also excited by the process.
“In general, I do love sharing my work because I think that’s what it’s all for – to share this message with someone else,” she said. “Writing is an art form and deserves to be presented.
“In a show last year, I found it exciting, the concept of writing it and handing it to another director. It was different from what I had in my head but it was an exciting difference.”
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