Young playwrights speak their minds in Pegasus festival
Young playwrights speak their minds in Pegasus festival
This year’s 29th annual festival features a trio of plays that run the gamut from parent- child conversations about sexual orientation to finding one’s place among the many different high school cliques.
The Young Playwrights Festival— which encourages Chicago high school students to write plays, and selects three of them for a professional production— is the most enduring element in Pegasus Theatre Chicago’s history.
The festival not only serves as a competitive challenge to creative students, but is an invaluable hands- on introduction to live theater for many of the participants. Watching the winning plays is instructive to audiences, too, as they invariably reveal the preoccupations of this generation of teens— some predictable, some surprising.
This year’s 29th annual festival features a trio of plays ( selected from500 submissions) that run the gamut from parent- child conversations about sexual orientation, to finding one’s place among the many different high school cliques, to considering the work of the Grim Reaper. The fledgling writers were asked to explore the theme of “expectations,” and each of them— including Myka Buck ( of Kenwood Academy, mentored by teacher Jon Nemeth), Brian Hayes ( of Taft High School, mentored by Sergio Santillan) and Keauna Pierce ( of Lane Tech High School, mentored by Molly Meacham)— dealt with the notion in a very different way.
“The Adventures of FeRb,” Hayes’ smart, wonderfully observant satirical comedy, looks at the unflagging efforts of the naive and nerdy but relentlessly upbeat title character ( whose name combines two elements, Iron and Rubidium, found on the Periodic Table of chemical elements) to become accepted into a “clique” as an incoming freshman at Rushmore High School.
FeRb’s first encounter is with the Goths, heavy smokers cloaked in black, and he is promptly rejected. He gets no better welcome fromthe break- dancing hipster crowd. And even the chemistry class kids, who he is willing to coach, send him packing.
Under Jason Fleece’s exuberant direction, Chris Acevedo brings a wonderful comic zest, physical goofiness and pathos to FeRb, with Brennan Stacker a complete hoot as the Goth princess.
The program begins with Buck’s “Our Little Secret,” directed by Lavina Jadhwanai. It homes in on Tomassina, aka “Tommy” ( Danielle Rennalls), a college- bound senior who has been unable to tell her stressed and somewhat detached single mom, Tracy ( Shadana Patterson), that she is gay. Tommy’s dad ( Chris Cinereski), who is serving time in jail, already knows the truth and is not at all judgmental. Push comes to shove when Tommy reveals she will be going to the prom ( in a tux) with Onya ( Erica Pezza), her girlfriend for the past two years.
The closer, Pierce’s “A Cup of Souls and One Grim Reaper, Please,” directed by Ilesa Duncan, takes a spirited look at life and death, and the bureaucracy of heaven and hell, with TV’s “Supernatural” perhaps a distant inspiration. Dave ( Cinerski), the young guy newly chosen for the job of Grim Reaper, messes up with the delivery of his first “client,” Jackie ( Patterson), and eventually confesses he would much rather be traveling the world than snatching souls.
The winners ( who receive a prize of $ 500 each) were joined on stage by the seven finalists ( all female, and the recipients of $ 100 each), as well as by some of the “honorable mention” playwrights.