High Life : A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : San Clemente Alum to Have Play Staged

“The Unwall,” a play written by San Clemente High School graduate Rian Johnson, will be staged in December in San Diego as part of the eighth annual California Young Playwrights Contest.

The four winning scripts were chosen from 130 contest submissions. They will be staged at the Cassius Carter Centre Stage in Balboa Park, Dec. 9 through 20.

“The Unwall” is a rambunctious satire about teen-age society. When a meek fellow aspires beyond his social status and asks a popular girl for a date, he lands them both in a medieval fantasy world. Johnson, 18, is enrolled at USC.

Other playwrights and their works chosen for presentation are Annie Weisman’s (18 and a graduate of Del Mar Torrey Pines High) “We’re Talking Today Here,” which features two high school seniors who rap about everything from body parts to heroes; Jim Knable’s (16 of Sacramento) “Free for All,” which is an absurdist look at the nature of happiness, and Risa Yanagisawa’s (17 and a senior at The Crossroads School for the Arts in Santa Monica) “The Dreamwalkers,” which has six strangers meet in a surreal dreamscape.

The Playwrights Project, a nonprofit arts education organization, provides statewide programs for young writers. These include playwriting classes in schools, the California Young Playwrights Contest, professional productions of scripts by writers under 19 and nationally broadcast television and video productions.

Target Stores, in its seventh year of support for the Playwrights Project, is underwriting the costs for this production.

The plays will be performed Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Student performances are scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Dec. 9 and 10.

Tickets, $9 and $7, are available by calling the Old Globe Box Office at (619) 239-2255. For more information about the Playwrights Project, call (619) 232-6188.

“Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.”