Theater

While the Gaslamp works with young playwrights, the La Jolla Playhouse and the UC San Diego Department of Theatre will, for the second successive year, co-sponsor the Young Performers Drama Festival on Saturday and Sunday.

The free, public event will include 20-minute presentations from 15 high schools, workshops in improvisation, stage combat, auditioning and vocal technique and Awards of Merit, determined by Jim Carmody, dramaturge at UC San Diego, Susan Leigh, voice and dialect coach and Nancy Churnin, theater critic for the San Diego edition of the Los Angeles Times.

The awards include scholarship grants to the La Jolla Playhouse Young Performers Workshop and a preview performance at both the La Jolla Playhouse and the Department of Theater at UC San Diego. The festival will be held at the Mandell Weiss Center for the Performing Arts from 1-5 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday with the last half-hour set aside for the awards convocation.