City Theatre Playmakers extends the influence of the Young Playwrights program by providing additional opportunities for area youth in the art of playwriting. Current initiatives include the production and broadcast of radio dramas written by Pittsburgh youth, and an interactive lobby installation as part of the annual Young Playwrights Festival.
Radio Drama Project
For the past three years, City Theatre has teamed with National audio Theatre Festivals, AAM Studios, and The Saturday Light Brigade to work with local students as they write radio dramas. Our most recent collaboration in the winter of 2006 featured the work of students from Sterrett and Rogers CAPA Middle Schools. Three classes worked with a City Theatre Teaching Artist to explore basic elements of playwriting and the specific elements of radio drama. Each class collaboratively wrote an original radio drama, which was professionally recorded with local Pittsburgh artists, and directed and produced by a national audio theatre specialist. The dramas also featured manual sound effects created by the students themselves!. The dramas – Amphibious Attack, A Knight at the Movies, and Mission Improbable – were given their world premiere broadcast here in Pittsburgh on The Saturday Light Brigade (88.3 FM) on Saturday, January 20, 2007.
Lobby Installation
The 2005 City Theatre Young Playwrights Festival once again featured The Write Stuff—an interactive lobby installation that allowed patrons to try their hand at playwriting. This “computer game” asked two players to choose from a variety of characters, work on developing the characters' personalities, and then begin a dialogue between the two characters. Scenes were then printed out for the players so that they could continue writing after they went home. The lobby installation was a favorite stop for many students and Festival patrons. The Write Stuff was designed by Allison Styer and Shanna Tellerman of the Human Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.
Check out The Write Stuff online!
City Theatre Playmakers is made possible by a grant from the Giant Eagle Foundation.