New For Summer: Teen Playwriting Lab

The inspiration for Teen Playwriting Lab came to Kristina Leach from a play festival she read about, one where they had a set on stage—likely for Bus Stop—she said. Instead of getting rid of the set once the production closed, they kept it for another three months and built a playwriting festival around it, asking writers to write a play based on that setting.

That inspiration merged with Leach’s love of structure and her infectious energy to create the newest class for the Summer Acting Workshop—Teen Playwriting Lab. Open to 9-12 graders or eighth graders with a year of experience in the SCR Youth Conservatory, Teen Playwriting Lab runs July 28-Aug. 8 from 2-4 p.m.

The ideal class for young writers looking for new ways to share their voices, Teen Playwriting Lab is a condensed edition of Leach’s Teen Playwriting class offered during the year. Students of all levels of writing experience are welcome. Classes will open with a discussion on what students are reading, watching and listening to, because Leach wants to get a feel for what they're consuming. Plus, that discussion opens the imagination for inspiration.

Leach is big on inspiration. During one session of her regular Teen Playwriting class, she took her students outside to write during a partial eclipse of the sun. The novelty and the “weirdness” was too much to pass up.

“We’re going to do the big things we do in my playwriting class: plot, character, conflict, but do it quicker, because we only have two weeks,” Leach said. “That’s why we’re going to be most likely writing around a setting. I’ll give them a place and have them write a play in that setting. I would like to explore the area of a place open 24 hours—airports, bus stations, diners, so we can explore the idea how different characters will come in and out of the place.”

As a playwright, Leach likes structure. She likes deadlines and she likes that there are certain givens within the expansive worlds she hopes to inspire in her students. Given the short nature of the class, that structure and those givens will help students focus toward creating their worlds.

“I love having to work with something that everyone has to work with. I love that they all see it different and they will all have something interesting to say. And I love that it won’t be the same,” she said. “… It doesn’t matter where the muse or inspiration comes from. I’m just trying to crack it open.”