Bill Simmers
Play Slam! Young Playwrights Competition
The winners of Playhouse on the Square’s 10-minute Young Playwrights Competition, Play Slam! Year 5, has been announced. Students from different schools submitted their plays, and judges picked the best ones.
Carter Yeargan, a tenth-grader from Houston High School, won the High School Division with his play Public Transit. “The win means a lot, a whole lot. It’s affirming the effort I’ve poured into my writing over the course of years, and seeing it recognized so publicly really makes me feel like a genuine writer,” says Yeargan. “Winning, while not necessary to show skill as a writer, feels incredibly validating. It makes you reflect on everything you’ve ever written, and realize it isn’t actually all that bad.”
The inspiration for the ten-minute play primarily came from Yeargan’s personal journey. He was an incredibly shy person throughout most of his life, only coming out of his shell in his freshman year. Encouraged by a supportive network of friends, he became increasingly sociable and now has a stable, large social circle with many friends he genuinely enjoys being around. The support and affirmations of his friends made this possible. Public Transit was Yeargan’s attempt to translate this experience into a play as accurately as possible. Public Transit was not his initial idea, but it was through writing down all his other ideas that he realized it was the best one. “Write, write as much as you can. By the end of it, you’ll either have a learning experience or a competition-worthy script,” says Yeargan.
Five other students, Keyana Campbell, Naomi Alterman, Isabella Parish, Adalee Walker, and Alyssa Gray, were chosen as finalists in the High School Division, and Alyssa Gray’s play, Clementine, got the Runner-Up award.
In the Middle School Division, Hannah Drane, a seventh-grader at First Assembly Christian School, won with her play Haircuts. Drane enjoys expressing her creativity through writing, drawing, and music. “Your views of the world matter and ideas you may think are bad may actually be really awesome,” says Drane. “This win means a lot to me because I didn’t really think that my writing was very good when I entered the competition.” When Drane’s theater instructor requested that she pen a script for the occasion, Drane was initially skeptical of her writing abilities. However, she soon realized the importance of trusting her perspectives and ideas, which ultimately surprised her. Drane attributes much of her inspiration for this script to her friends. She now envisions a future career in writing and illustrating comics.
Judges also chose six finalists in the Middle School Division: Cadence Drane, Patrick Jefferson, Bryan Cole, Elena Martines, Lucy Gibson, and Gibson’s play Bottled Up got the Runner-Up award.
Play Slam! is an event comprising a competition and a tribute to new literary works from aspiring writers and theater enthusiasts from the Mid-South region. All the submitted scripts are evaluated by a board of judges.
Finalists and winners from both the Middle and High School Divisions will be presented in the Play Slam! Young Playwrights Festival at Evergreen Theatre, May 19-21. Finalists will have their scripts read aloud by local actors, while winners will have their scripts performed on stage by local professional actors with limited props and costumes.
Furthermore, the top winner in each division will have their play submitted to the national Playwrights for Change competition as the Playhouse on the Square’s representative.
Play Slam! is executed in collaboration with the American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE) Playwrights for Change contest, centered around a distinct social subject every year. This year’s PFC competition theme was “What No One Talks About.”
For more information on Play Slam!, visit playhouseonthesquare.org/play-slam/.