Young Writers' Blog

I am thrilled to announce that my husband, Jeremy Wallace-Segall, has joined the Writopia team! He has served the nonprofit community for over a decade, and had been sharing his technology and organizational expertise with Writopia during evening and weekend hours over the past two years. Thankfully, we will be able to benefit from his knowledge more fully now.

Jeremy's education and non-profit experience will help us tremendously as we set out to bring writing workshops to as many kids as possible. As Director of Operations, Jeremy will take over many back-office tasks and will spearhead our efforts to bring in new students and develop relationships with more schools and community partners. Jeremy will use his database and web experience to strengthen the systems we use around the office, in workshops, and in communicating with the outside world. And he'll use his love of systemizing and documentation to make sure that we're always delvering the best service possible to our young writers.

At the Lab, our students have already seen a major change in the way we share our writing. By the end of the summer parents will also benefit from changes as he re-organizes and updates the website. And deep within our back-office lair, a handful of us will soon benefit from a new database for tracking students, families, schools, and workshops--maybe not so exciting for all of you, but quite thrilling, trust me, for those of us who actually need the data!

You can get in touch with him at (646) 290-8296 or jeremy@writopialab.org. Feel free to say hi, welcome him aboard, or barrage him with questions.

We are so excited to have him on board!

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After almost a year of playwriting, Serena Alagappan, 11, and Jane Herz, 11, were awarded the great honor of seeing their plays come to life on stage last Thursday at the 2009 Write a Play! award ceremony. Stephen Sondheim's Young Playwrights Inc awards their top contestants with certificates and staged readings (by real actors!) each year. The most satisfying part: the audience laughed and cried on cue during the reading of the girls' plays.

And there's more: All five Writopia writers who submitted to various playwriting festivals were honored in various ways. On the national level, congratulations Rachel Calnek-Sugin, 12, Joe Polsky, 11, and Serena Alagappan 11, for winning honorable mentions in the Young Playwrights National Competition; in the region, congratulations Serena and Jane, winners of the elementary school division of the 2009 Write a Play! competition; and congratulations to Joe Polsky and Rachel Sobelsohn, 13, finalists in the elementary and middle school division of the festival.

And, finally, an enormous congratulations to Dan Kitrosser, their playwriting teacher, for so successfully cultivating the leaders of the next generation of American playwrights.

Please help our writers celebrate by reading their scripts below and in an earlier post.

Thrust Away
By Joe Polsky

Scene 1

Jared

I can’t believe Mom sent me out to some dumb old camp with an idiot like you!

Brian silently unpacking bags next to tent on stage left.

Jared

I mean, how brainless, you’re such a suck up. You can’t just leave me alone can you? You need constant attention ALWAYS.

Thrust Away

By Joe Polsky

Scene 1

Jared

I can’t believe Mom sent me out to some dumb old camp with an idiot like you!

Brian silently unpacking bags next to tent on stage left.

Jared

I mean, how brainless, you’re such a suck up. You can’t just leave me alone can you? You need constant attention ALWAYS.

Brian is silent.

Jared

So just leave me alone! You’re going to totally ruin this summer like every other summer, I used to have friends before you came along and pulverized my image.

Brian turns slightly away so his back is facing Jared and he is facing the tent.

Jared

UUUUGH.

Jared storms away off stage right.

Brian sighs and continues unpacking.

Chuck enters the stage from stage left a moment later.

Chuck

What a jerk. Who is he anyway?

Brian

Brother.

Chuck

Feel bad for you. I’m Chuck.

Brian

Brian.

Chuck

Cool, so, like, how long you staying?

Brian

Six weeks, how about you?

Chuck

Eight. What’s your school? Mine’s P.S. 72.

Brian

Used to be P.S. 107. Then I switched on scholarship.

Chuck

Really? Where to?

Brian

Hunter Elementary.

Chuck

Suuuuure. Unbelieving. I don’t do so well. Mainly because all the teachers hate me.

Brian

Hmmm.

Chuck

Hey, want to mess with the counselors’ stuff? You can get the phones to play the voicemails over and over again across the loudspeaker.

Brian

Uhhhh, are you sure? I mean maybe we shouldn’t, we could get in trouble—

Chuck

Oh come on, don’t be a goody-two-shoes. I do it all the time. It’ll be hilarious. Can you imagine what they’ll do when all their private calls pour out across camp?

Brian grins.

Everyone exits to stage right.

Scene 2

Jared

Stage right Hey, where is everyone? Jerks. Why do I even bother? They’re probably playing some dumb old game or something. I mean it’s hard to believe I’m even related to that moron. He’s such a dork. You know he used to be cool, in fact before he started acting like some smart-alec kiss-up, blabbering about the stuff everyone tunes out in the classrooms, we would sometimes hang out. But then he got leukemia and was in the hospital for months. He was totally loving it, watching T.V. all day, sleeping late, awesome. But then Mom and Dad told him he was going to repeat the grade. Suddenly he was reading all the time and writing essays. When he got back like five schools offered him scholarships. Plus Mom and Dad started paying huge amounts of attention to him: “Oh you poor thing. My baby is there anything I can get you? Ice cream, a T.V. in your room, anything?” It was like I wasn’t there.

Chuck and Brian enter from stage left, not seeing Jared, both laughing.

Chuck

What a moron! He walked right past us and didn’t even notice!

Brian

Yeah, I thought for sure we were done for!

Chuck

You know I didn’t really want to mention this before, but I’ve never actually done that. The counselors are sooo up tight about their stuff.

Brian

So why did you do it now?

Chuck

Because now if I got in trouble, I wouldn’t be the only one to take the blame.

Brian frowns and is about to say something when the loudspeaker sounds.

Loudspeaker

Hey, Artyhuns. What’s up tonight? You said you wanted to see Forever in Love, but maybe we should see something else. Remember the last time? At I’ll Never Love Another?

There is a beep as the reply starts.

Loudspeaker

Lizzykins, that’s not fair, you know it wasn’t real tears. They were the delayed reaction from the drops I took… before.

Beep

Loudspeaker

Uh huh sure, maybe we shouldn’t see a movie. Why don’t we just eat at, uh, McDonalds? I know you love those toys.

Chuck and Brian burst out laughing.

Jared

Idiots.

Brian

Hey who said that? Oh Jared, just you.

Jared

Just me? Just me! —Oh never mind. You’re not worth it.

Jared walks into tent.

Brian sighs and follows him into tent.

Chuck

See you tomorrow.

Chuck walks off stage.

Scene 3

There is a round table at center stage.

Chuck sits down with Brian.

Chuck

Hey!

Aaron

Hi.

Jake

Hi.

Ken

Wuz up!

Brian

Um… hi…

Chuck

The one to the far right’s Aaron, the left’s Jake, and the middle’s Ken. We think he was dropped on his head as a baby. On a rock.

Ken throws a piece of food at Chuck.

Chuck and Brian sit down.

Chuck

Where’s he?

Aaron (with a mouth full of food)

Wroo?

Brian

My brother.

Both Ken and Jake nod in unison and say “ah.”

Aaron

Shrugs Only child.

Chuck

What are today’s electives?

Jake

Morning’s swimming, fencing, and art. Afternoon’s paintball, soccer, and tennis.

Jared rushes onto the stage.

Jared

UUUUGH! Why didn’t you wait for me??? I would have waited. What’s the world coming to when a guy can’t trust his brother?

Silence

Jared

All right, so what’s the story? I’m Jared, want to hang out at the tent? He wont be there.

Everyone gets up and leaves

Jared

…you’re all idiots!

Scene 4

There is a stand on right stage with foils and helmets on it.

Coach Erica

All right, have you done this before?

Jared

Just give me the sword. I need to hit something.

Coach Erica

Not with that attitude.

Whap Coach Eric hits Jared lightly with the tip of the foil.

Jared

Arrgh! What did you do that for? You hit me! Child abuse! I could sue! What kind of a person are you to hurt a child like that? Have I ever done anything to you? No I haven’t, so just back off before I tell my parents what you did and they wont be very happy about it!

Coach Erica

Out.

Jared

ARRRGH!

Jared walks off stage.

Scene 5

Jared walks on off stage right and kicks a branch towards the tent.

Jared crawls into tent.

Lights dim to dark blue and a bell sounds. Jared walks out of tent.

Jared walks to stage right then turns around.

Jared

Why do I even bother? It’s not like they’ll talk to me. Who cares if counselors get me? In fact I hope they do.

Jared turns around back toward stage left and trips over a fallen branch. It snaps and goes through his leg. He cries out and a counselor comes from stage right.

Counselor.

Oh God, help! We need an ambulance here!

When the counselor turns around his hands are stained with blood and runs off stage right.

A siren sounds and people dressed like EMTs with a stretcher enter from stage right.

They carry Jared off stage right.

Scene 6

There is a cot on stage right with Jared on it.

There is a plastic tube taped to Jared’s arm running into an I.V.

Brian enters the stage from stage left and sits down on a chair.

Jared’s eyes open a little but Brian doesn’t notice.

Brian

Jared, why did you stop talking to me? You saved my life, once. I remember, we were at baseball practice and I was running around to second base when the dizziness started. It felt like the air was bending around me and then the oxygen cut off and I fell. Nobody noticed but you and you ran across the field while the Coach was yelling at some kid. They told me you called to the coach and the coach dialed the ambulance but if you hadn’t seen me, I would be dead. But then when I got out of the hospital you completely ignored me. After I a while, I just got so worked up that I hit you. I’m so sorry, I was just so angry. You hate me and it’s all my fault. When I heard the sirens I thought it couldn’t possibly be Jared, it couldn’t be my brother. And I wasn’t there. I should have been.

Brian starts toward stage left then stops when he hears Jared whisper something.

Jared

Brian, I’m sorry.

The End

Jared: boy, roughly five feet tall black hair skinny

Brian: boy, roughly five feet tall brown hair skinny

Erica: woman, average hight, brown hair in a ponytail

Chuck: boy, curley red hair, freckles, normal with, hight

Ken: boy, short, brown hair

Arron: tall, red hair, glasses

Jake: boy, brown hair, thin

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