The Young Playwrights Festival exhibited the creativity and talent of Port Washington students. This annual Schreiber High School Drama Club production featured a collection of eight, one-act plays performed in the Weber Middle School auditorium on June 9 and 10.
“As a first-time director and writer, it was so rewarding to see my own work performed by dedicated actors and to bring someone else’s show to life,” said Daliah Bernstein. “I feel really lucky that we are a school that offers a chance for students to act, direct and even write their own shows.”
Under the guidance of Advisors Gloria Vaserstein and Sari Schulman, the Drama Club Executive Board, Max Miranda, Alexandra DeAngelis, Jenna Cohen, Anna Cohen, Sarah DeMarino and Julia Gurlitz, received student-written plays and determined directors. The advisors, board and directors conducted the audition process and critiqued writers and actors to hone the creative abilities of Schreiber students.
“I loved being able to see my work come to life on the stage,” said DeMarino. “As actors, we have so many ideas and plot lines that pop into our heads and are dying to get on paper. Getting the opportunity to see my words translated to the stage is something that I will always be grateful for.”
Written by Emma Goldman and directed by Nicole Manasseri, the comedy Try Again featured friends Tom and Julia (Jared Wofse and Piper Woods) out at a Chinese restaurant. Wofse and Woods artfully enacted their characters’ romantic overtones, which developed as Tom and Julia realized they could not escape what they thought was fate behind their accurate fortune cookies. Their crafty server (Sydney Morrissey) ended the play in the spotlight, saying, “Works every time,” suggesting that maybe it was more than serendipity that brought the two together.
This theme of inevitable fate also manifested itself in my drama, Styx, in which Elaine (Rosa Benson), suffering from Alzheimer’s, is forced to realize that she cannot alter her past. When the play begins, she is unresponsive. Childhood best friend Mary (Lily Welsh) asks Elaine’s son, Tom (Jeffrey Lockom), “Can you really blame her for wanting to forget?” The scene changes and Elaine converses with a series of progressively younger versions of herself. Julia Hayden, Sydney Morrissey, Daliah Bernstein, Peri Goldblatt and Mikayla Walsh each masterfully portrayed a different transformative event in Elaine’s lifetime.
“I connected with the show because my grandfather had Alzheimer’s, so I knew how to interpret it and it kind of hit home in a nice way,” said Director Chris Pietrantonio. “All the actors were amazing and made it seem like each part was made for them, which made the show really engaging; I am glad to have been a part of that. The show was honestly so much fun to do.”
Julia Gurlitz’s To Be Determined served as a much-needed comic relief following the blow to the head that was my show. In her show within a show, directed by Sally Hecht, a director (Zareen Johnson) searches for the perfect star, only to discover, after the hilarious auditions of Amanda Krantz, Bridget Doherty, Una Stopford and Carly Feldman, that what she has been looking for has been under her nose the whole time. And no, it was not her snarky producer (Jay Peierls), but instead her lazy stage hand (Evan Gilmore), who, furious with his maltreatment, delivers an applause-winning, perfect performance.
“I had a lot of fun being in the show,” said Evan Gilmore. “The cast was a riot. Claude was by far the angriest character I’ve ever had to play.”
The Young Playwrights Festival also showcased Class is in Session, written by Jenna Cohen and directed by Daliah Bernstein; A Matter of Ethics, written by Sophia Andreadis and directed by Ellie Bain; Glass Walls, written by Sarah DeMarino and directed by Jordan Youner; After the Beep, written by Daliah Bernstein and directed by Bridget Doherty; and Conviction, written by Allison Winter and directed by Shannon Russo. In addition, the Young Playwrights Festival featured Isabelle Verdino, Jack Gilsenan, Megan Day, Veronica Lee, Sydney Kass, Max Miranda, Max Welsh, Alexandra DeAngelis, Kelsey Weisburd, Jenna Cohen, Stefanie Epstein, Julia Gurlitz and Anna Cohen. All shows made adroit use of spotlight and sound. This article would be remiss without thanking the student stage crew.
(Rudy Malcom is a student at Schreiber High School.)
