ACHIEVING PERFECTION And ANGEL Among Alley Theatre's HYPE Program

For the thirteenth consecutive year, the Alley Theatre is providing young playwrights the chance to improve and expand their writing skills with its summer program, Houston Young Playwrights Exchange (HYPE).  Six plays by local teens have been selected to undergo development in a professional forum guided by the Alley’s staff, with the program culminating in a three-day public showcase of their work as staged readings – Friday, July 31 through Sunday, August 2 on the Neuhaus stage. Some plays contain Adult Language. 

One of the Alley’s Education and Community Engagement Department’s premier programs, HYPE has helped over 50 young playwrights develop their work since the program was started in 1996. The six HYPE participants also have the opportunity to learn from the expertise of C. Denby Swanson, HYPE playwright in residence. C. Denby Swanson is a 2007/2008 NEA/TCG Playwright in Residence with Zach Theatre Center. She graduated from Smith College, the National Theatre Institute, and the University of Texas Michener Center for Writers, and has been a William Inge Playwright in Residence, a Jerome Fellow and a McKnight Advancement Grant recipient. Her work has been commissioned by the Guthrie Theater, 15 Head a Theatre Lab, Macalester College, and The Drilling Company and featured in the Southern Playwrights Festival, the Women Playwrights Project, the Estro-Genius Festival, and PlayLabs 2002. She won a 2008 Susan Smith Blackburn Special Prize for her short play The Potato Feast. She is a Core member of The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, an alumna of the Lark Theater’s Playwrights Week 2005, a former Artistic Director of Austin Script Works, and on the faculty at Southwestern University.

Plays featured in the Alley’s Houston Young Playwrights Exchange 2009 include:

Achieving Perfection 
by Alexandria Igwe, Age 18 (Houston, TX 77035) 

Chelsea Lock is a girl in desperate need of perfection. If her family can’t achieve that, maybe a virtual alternative can.

Alexandria Igwe is a graduate of Michael E. DeBakey High School for the Health Professions and will attend Howard University in the fall. She has been honored with the Leco’s Writing Competition Gold Award for her essay on Marvin Zindler. She hopes audiences will take away from her play that “You can’t spend your entire life trying to mold people to your image…” 

Angel 
by Jennifer Moreno, Age 16 (North Shore, TX 77484)

How do you love someoNe You know you’re going to lose? A young girl wrestles with that question when she learns of her mother’s terminal cancer.
 
Jennifer Moreno will be entering her senior year at North Shore Senior High School in the fall. Jennifer participates in the theatre program at her high school and chose to participate in HYPE because she wants “to be able to experience something new and…to make theatre noticed at [her] school.” She hopes the audience will take away from her play “the feeling that even if someoNe You love leaves, they never truly leave.” 

Do the Ends Justify the Means?
by José Peña, Age 17 (Houston, TX 77017) 

In the Magnolia Park neighborhood of Houston, a young man looks for ways to help his struggling family. But the easy option leads to dangerous consequences.
 
José Peña will begin his senior year at Carnegie Vanguard High School in the fall. The inspiration for his play came “from a song called ‘Dance With The Devil’ by Immortal Technique.” He wanted to be a part of HYPE because he “wanted to see [his] play at its full potential.” Peña hopes through his play the audience will “…be exposed to and learn to appreciate a counter-culture in Houston.”
 
Nothing’s Simple 
by BrIan Smith, Age 16 (Houston, TX 77021)

A quest for vengeance leads Trace into the world of organized crime. But he finds that getting in is much simpler than getting out.

BrIan Smith is a student at Carnegie Vanguard High School. From the HYPE experience Brian hopes to learn “how to write a well rounded, deep, interesting and slightly funny piece of theatrical art.” He says that he put “a little of [himself] into all of the characters [he] created.”  

One-Eight-Hundred
by Robert Wayne, Jr., Age 16 (Houston, TX 77006)

Automated banking is supposed to be easy. But for Stan, a simple attempt to transfer some funds turns into something far more complicated. 

Robert Wayne, Jr. is a student at the Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professions. He was inspired to write this play by “A phone call to [his] mother’s credit card company that went, to say the least, bad.” He relates to the characters of his play through “the troubles of calling a 1-800 number.”

Murder in the First Degree 
by Crystal Wilkerson, Age 16 (Waller, TX 77484)

Dr. Long is a healer, determined to help his patients. But what does he do when a patient tells him that the pain is just too much?
 
Crystal Wilkerson is in 11th grade at Waller High School and participates in Theatre and Band. She is “interested in arts studies like photography.” Crystal says she relates to her character Dr. Long because “He is faced with doing what he thinks is right even though it contradicts what society thinks is right or wrong.”

HYPE performances will be Friday, July 31, at 7:30 PM, Saturday, August 1 at 7:30 PM and Sunday, August 2, at 2:30 PM. Tickets are only $5 and can be purchased at the Alley Theatre box office, 615 Texas Avenue. For more ticket information visit www.alleytheatre.org or call 713.220.5700.

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