KidsWrite Festival Celebrates 16 Years Of Original Plays

Burning Coal Theatre celebrates its 16th Annual KidsWrite Festival May 24th and 25th at 7 pm at 224 Polk Street, Raleigh, NC 27604. Tickets are $10 at the door or may be purchased in advance by calling 919.834.4001.

This year's playwrights include

Henry Carroll, Brooke Davis, and Nicholas O'Kon (Moore Square Magnet Middle School)
Abigail Celoria (North Raleigh Christian Academy)

Natalie Wykle (Wake Forest High School)

Skye Parks and Abigail Shorter (Enloe High School)

Brea Smith (Jack Britt High School)

Every spring, Burning Coal Theatre receives play submissions from local 6th-12th graders that are then professionally produced for the public. Burning Coal has assembled a team of skilled theatre artists to bring these young writers' stories to life.

The KidsWrite Festival was created in 2004 to encourage young writers in central NC by producing their original one act plays. Finalists are chosen from numerous submissions. Those scripts are produced at the theatre and then published in a book available for purchase. After receiving a record number of play submissions, this year's featured playwrights include

Burning Coal Theatre Company is one of Raleigh's intimate, professional theatres. Burning Coal is an incorporated, non-profit [501 (c) (3)] organization. Burning Coal's mission is to produce literate, visceral, affecting theatre that is experienced, not simply seen. Burning Coal produces explosive reexaminations of overlooked classic and modern plays, as well as new plays, whose themes and issues are of immediate concern to our audience, using the best local, national and International Artists available. We work toward a theatre of high-energy performances and minimalist production values. The emphasis is on literate works that are felt and experienced viscerally, unlike more traditional linear plays, at which audiences are most often asked to observe without participating. Race and gender non-specific casting is an integral component of our perspective, as well as an international viewpoint.

Find more information at www.burningcoal.org.

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