The Write on the Edge festival, the Manhattan Club's series designed to to turn troubled teens into playwrights, will be presented on Monday, June 6, at City Center (131 West 55th Street) beginning at 10:30 AM and running through the day until 8 PM. Professional actors will perform short plays by at-risk and incarcerated youths from alternative high schools in the metropolitan area.
Write on the Edge, under the guidance of MTC Education Director David Shookhoff, is a playwriting program that encourages troubled teens to develop original scripts inspired by MTC productions they have studied and attended. Assisted by MTC artists and classroom teachers, students are guided through the process of writing and revising their plays. The culmination of the year-long project is the Write on the Edge Festival at City Center.The fourteen participating schools include International Arts and Business/Brooklyn; Adolescent Reception and Detention Center/Annex (ARDC), ARDC/Main, ARDC/Sprungs (Rikers Island); Satellite Academy/Queens; Satellite Academy/Midtown, Urban Academy/Manhattan; Satellite Academy/Bronx; Satellite Academy/Forsyth; Rose M. Singer Center/Riker's Island; Eric M. Taylor Center/Riker's Island; High Impact/Riker's Island; Community School for Social Justice/Bronx; Phoenix Academy/ Westchester County Residential Program run by NYC DOE.
WrOTE was implemented in 1994 with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, MTC is one of the country's leading cultural institutions. Last season, MTC presented Reckless, Brooklyn Boy, Moonlight and Magnolias, Five by Tenn, A Picasso, Doubt and After the Night and the Music. The latter two are still running at the Walter Kerr Theatre and at the Biltmore Theatre, respectively, with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Doubt nominated in 7 Tony categories, including Best Play.For more information on the Manhattan Theatre Club, visit www.mtc-nyc.org
