Friday, January 31, 2020

Student Playwrights Honored in Playwriting Competition at Delaware Theatre Company

This post's content comes from a release from Delaware Theatre Company...

Delaware Theatre Company (DTC) is pleased to announce the five finalist plays and playwrights in the 2019-2020 Delaware Young Playwrights Festival (DYPF):
  • Distant Shores by Melody Fritz (Appoquinimink High School)
  • Fortunes by Zach Hitchens (Cab Calloway School of the Arts)
  • Coffee Shop by Nikolas Mandalas (Dover High School)
  • The Lost Kids by Lauren McAllister (St. Elizabeth School)
  • The Mind's Eye by Bridgette A. Rivers (St. Elizabeth School)
The five finalists will participate in a series of playwriting workshops with professional theatre artists to further refine their writing and ready their works for a public showcase performance on March 12, 2020 at 7:30 p.m. on the DTC stage.

This year's DYPF began in September 2019 with a kickoff workshop for Delaware teachers and students in Grades 8-12. From there, 55 students representing nine schools from all three counties throughout the state submitted their original plays for the first round. 

Each playwright received feedback about his or her play from a teaching artist of the DTC staff. Student playwrights then had the opportunity to revise their plays. Playwrights resubmitted their work for the second round, also known as the "competition round." From these entries, the five finalist plays were selected for additional development under the guidance of DTC’s team of theatre artists and educators.

Though not selected as finalists, six other plays and their playwrights are recognized with an honorable mention for the merits of their work. They are: The Vinyl by Asjah Brown (MOT Charter High School); Composition by Kylie Daisey (Cape Henlopen High School); Coffee and Confidants by Skylar Hass (Smyrna High School); A Glass Mask by Trinity Hunt (Cab Calloway School of the Arts); More Than an Eye by Hylea Lisenby (Cape Henlopen High School); and Wondering Goodbye by Katelyn Mock (Sussex Central High School).

Now in its ninth year of the relaunch of this acclaimed program, DYPF invites students in Grades 8-12 to write a play based on a theme inspired by one of Delaware Theatre Company's productions. This year's theme was inspired by a quotation from the Patrick Barlow adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, produced by DTC in December 2019. 

The quotation reads, “And so I say ‘Open Sesame,’ Bob. To all the real treasures of the world. All the true treasures!” These words, spoken by the character of Ebenezer Scrooge after his transformative night, served as a springboard for the DYPF theme: Write a play in which a character seeks, finds, or identifies his or her version of treasure as a result of life circumstances.

Through the use of a standards-based writing rubric, students created and shaped their original plays with regard to characters, conflict, dialogue, theme, and other dramatic criteria. Delaware Theatre Company celebrates the work of all 55 students in adding 51 new plays to the world of theatre through their participation in the 2019-2020 Delaware Young Playwrights Festival.

The mission of Delaware Theatre Company's DYPF is to provide students with an authentic audience for their creative writing and teachers with an innovative literacy program. Guided by passion and professionalism, DYPF uses educational resources, interactive workshops, personal feedback to every playwright, and public performances to engage students in the art of theatre through the act of writing a play. Both competitive and cooperative, DYPF fosters, respects, and celebrates the voices of young writers.

Friday, January 10, 2020

Serafin Ensemble Welcomes Cellist Jacques-Pierre Malan

Newest Serafin Ensemble member, cellist Jacques-Pierre Malan.
This post content originates from a release from Serafin Ensemble...
The Serafins add Jacques-Pierre Malan, South African cellist, soloist, chamber musician, teacher and music entrepreneur, to the roster of artists. 


Malan has received international acclaim for his unparalleled performances and innovative projects. Malan joins the Serafins for performances in January and April this year, as well as Serafin Summer Music festival in June.

“Joining the Serafin Ensemble roster is a thrilling addition to my musical path,” comments Malan. “We have more exciting opportunities this season to create magic together for the audiences we encounter, and I am confident we will enjoy a long and healthy partnership.”

Sunday, December 15, 2019

City Theater Company Takes You in Search of "The Real" with "Passing Strange"

Passing Strange at City Theater Company runs through December 21.
Photos by Joe del Tufo/Moonloop Photography.
By Holly Quinn
Holly is a longtime reviewer of Delaware theater; in addition to Delaware Arts Info, she has contributed to The News Journal and Stage Magazine. She is the lead reporter for Technical.ly Delaware.

Passing Strange, the layered rock musical by Stew, is a Christmas show. At least tangentially. I'd never looked at it that way, but as it's City Theater Company's December production, I wondered if they were simply being alternative in a season when a lot of arts lovers need a break from the Christmas Carols and Nutcrackers.

After seeing it, it occurred to me how well it fits during this turbulent holiday season. It tackles race and revolution, but it all comes down to love.

Even viewed as a (tangentially) Christmas show, Passing Strange is about as far from traditional as possible. It's the story of a young African American man trying to figure himself out in the suburbs of Los Angeles in the 1970s, and, later, in Europe in the 1980s. It has an all-Black cast that includes a small ensemble that plays multiple characters with wildly different personalities, from members of the protagonist’s childhood Baptist church to members of his teenage punk rock band to his "found families" in Amsterdam and West Berlin.

Youth often found himself 
 quite by his own choices  part of white spaces, but the ensemble doesn't shift to white actors for those roles, a detail of the show established before the show hit off-Broadway. As such, it’s a story about Black experience that never centers on whiteness, even when Youth exists as the only Black person in a space.

Dominic Santos, a respected veteran of Delaware theater at this point, plays Youth from the age of 14 to his early 20s, and does a terrific job of developing the character on stage as he tries to find his identity. Youth feels out of place in Black spaces 
— a crush tells him he needs to be “more Black” (but not so much that he can’t follow a path to suburban comfort), while his choir leader shows him the misery of not being your real self.

Eventually Youth does act “more Black” 
 for Berlin radicals who fetishize oppression and lavish him with the attention he craves.

Meredith Bell, former lead singer for Palaceburn, hits the right emotional notes as the vivacious and long-suffering Mother; Chris Banker, last seen at CTC in Pub Plays, is almost simply part of the soundtrack for much of the show. As the tension in the story builds, so does the Narrator’s place in it.

This show requires an extremely tight ensemble, and this production has it in Jared Chichester, Dana Hoffman, Kyleen Shaw and Philip Anthony Wilson. A mix of newcomers to the Wilmington stage and familiar faces (Shaw was last seen at CTC in Lizzie), the casting couldn’t be more on point. Each plays three to four distinct roles, and each shine in all of them. Part of the fun 
 and this show is definitely fun, even while dealing with some heavy emotional subject matter  is waiting to see how the ensemble actors will change from arc to arc as Youth goes on his journey.

So, how is this story about a young, sometimes misguided man navigating a world he struggles to fit into a Christmas show? I won’t give too much away, but a pivotal moment in the story that centering on family and the holidays is the catalyst to the emotional climax about love, loss and forgiveness. But don’t let that deter you if you’re avoiding traditional holiday shows. This is one not to miss.