Dorset Theatre Festival Begins The 6th Annual Jean E. Miller Young Playwrights Competition

On Tuesday, February 6, 2018, Dorset Theatre Festival began its 6th annual Jean E. Miller Young Playwrights Competition and Workshops. This program provides an opportunity for students to learn about playwriting and create a short 10-60 page play of their own. Workshop participants typically include more than 15 schools, 300 students, and 60 play submissions.

YOUNG PLAYWRIGHTS COMPETITION

Through its education programs, DTF nurtures the youngest of aspiring playwrights with a series of Playwriting Workshops with visiting professional playwrights in regional middle and high schools. This program provides an opportunity for students to learn about playwriting and create a play of their own, with help from the DTF playwriting mentors, a group of advanced students from Bennington College. After a series of workshops-this year- taught by Berkshire playwrights Anne Considine and Maizy Scarpa, students are invited to submit a short play for adjudication by a panel of nationally recognized professional playwrights. The program culminates in a performance of the winning plays at the Playhouse in the fall, in what is truly a celebration of the talent of our youngest theatre makers.

This program is made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Trust and the Shubert Foundation.

2018 Schools Currently Participating:

Hiland Hall, Long Trail School, Dorset School, Arlington Memorial High School, Stratton Mountain School, Burr and Burton Academy, Rutland High School, Mt. Anthony Middle School.

2018 Workshop Featured Artists:

Maizy Broderick Scarpa is a playwright, performer, and director. Her plays Pandora Shakes Things Up and Cirque du Dismay were both finalists at Radius Playwrights Festival. Others include Adults (Women's Shorts); Strange New Planet (NYU/Tisch/ETW), and A Play Where Nothing Happens (Shakespeare & Co Fringe). Wayward Home, a musical folktale created in collaboration with singer-songwriter Clara Strauch, will tour the Northeast in-concert this April (waywardhome.weebly.com). A passionate education artist, Maizy has taught at Hampton Shakespeare Festival, and in Shakespeare & Company's award-winning education program. She also co-created an English as a Foreign Language program for government employees in Erbil, Kurdistan.

Annie Considine is an education artist, playwright, director, and actor based in Lenox, Massachusetts. She has been a teaching artist with Shakespeare & Company since 2013, and has since directed 17 educational productions of Shakespeare's plays. Annie is also a member of the Writers Group at Berkshire Playwrights Lab, and participated in the Radius Playwrights Festival this past January. In the summer of 2016, she traveled to Bosnia & Herzegovina to teach and direct an educational touring production of Romeo & Juliet (Romeo i Julija) with the program Youth Bridge Global, a non-profit that stages youth productions in countries with histories of violence. Annie holds a B.A. in Theater and Performance Studies from the University of Chicago, and has trained with the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, Black Box Acting Studio, and Shakespeare & Company.

DORSET THEATRE FESTIVAL

Dorset Theatre Festival creates bold and innovative theatre that engages a diverse, multi-generation community: enlightening, entertaining, and inspiring its audience through the celebration of great plays produced with the highest degree of artistry. All Dorset Theatre Festival performances take place at the Dorset Playhouse, 104 Cheney Road, Dorset, VT.

For more information, visit Dorset Theatre Festival website at dorsettheatrefestival.org.

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