9 Talented High School Students in VG Playwriting Program

The Victory Gardens Theater Arts Education Department has selected nine talented Chicago-area high school students to participate in its free, summer youth playwriting intensive program, Sound Off: Your Words/Your Voice 2008.

Now in its 6th year, Sound Off is designed for high school students to receive mentoring from a professional playwright while learning the mechanics of writing a play and having it produced for the stage. The following nine students have been selected to work Victory Gardens' resident playwright Douglas Post from a pool of more than 50 candidates:

Alexandra Anderson, Chicago, Taft Academic Center
Christina Courtney, Arlington Heights, Elk Grove High School
Caroline Donnelly, Chicago, Lincoln Park High School
Breanna Lucas, Arlington Heights, Prospect High School
Robert Walker, Chicago, Fenger High School
Latasha Hoard, Chicago, Kenwood Academy
Gabriella Martinez, Chicago, Kenwood Academy
Melissa Renee Smith, Chicago, Kenwood Academy
Ayanna Wimberly, Chicago, Kenwood Academy

These young writers will meet twice a week from June 24 through July 31 at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater to work on developing their original plays. The program concludes with each nominee holding auditions for their play, which will be subsequently performed on the Biograph mainstage Sunday, August 3 at 4 pm, allowing the young playwrights to see their work performed Readers Theater-style by working actors in front of a live audience.

Candidates were nominated by their teachers and have displayed interest in theater, creative writing, and self-expression. "The goals of Sound Off include mentoring students in the craft of writing a play, and nurturing and developing their individual voices," said Victory Gardens Arts Education Director Robert Cornelius. "Being a playwrights' theater, we also want to spur interest in playwriting and the theater arts as career options. We've found helping students write their own play with guidance from a real playwright, and watching actors bring life to the students' words is a great way to do that."

Victory Gardens Theater, Chicago's #1 presenter of new plays, was recognized by the Wall Street Journal as "the nation's most important incubator of new playwrights." The company affirms its commitment to the living playwright with arts education programs focused on heightening the practitioner's understanding of the processes and structures of modern storytelling in its varied forms. In addition to Sound Off, core Arts Education programs include Drama in the Schools where visiting artists work in partnership with teachers in the classroom to explore different ways of learning; Family Saturdays, which allows parents to bring their kids ages 4 and up to the theater, and while parents enjoy the show, VGT education professionals lead kids in theater games and activities; and the Scholarship Subscription Series, a citywide program that allows underserved Chicago Public School students to enjoy live plays and musicals for free at Victory Gardens.

Victory Gardens Theater is designated an Established Regional Arts Institution by the Illinois Arts Council (IAC), and is partially supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, a CityArts Program IV Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.  For more information, visit http://www.VictoryGardens.org

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