Schools’ Playwright Project Makes for Good Theater

It was a dramatic morning for the budding playwrights of Los Naranjos Elementary School, where 37 visiting high school theater-arts students brought the youngsters’ fanciful and funny stories to life.

“Godzilla was big, ugly and huge and he smelled really bad,” proclaimed the narrator of “King of the Monsters,” a candid tale by first-grader Sean Frasier that kept the young audience riveted.

“To hold their attention span is a major trick,” said Blake Gould, head of theater arts at Irvine High School, who directed the two 45-minute shows Tuesday. “I told my students, if you do something and it’s not right, these kids are so honest, they will not hesitate to tell you they don’t like it.”

The Young Playwrights Project, a collaboration between Gould and Los Naranjos Principal Bruce Baron, was initiated about five years ago to inspire young writers and challenge high school drama students. The program will be cited in new state Department of Education guidelines on performing-arts instruction, according to Baron.

“The thrill of having something you’ve written performed in front of all of your friends is really exciting for them,” Baron said.

And unlike more structured theater performances, Gould said, the program gives high school thespians an unusual opportunity for innovation.

“They are truly the creators; they know that nobody’s ever done these scripts before. But the big thing we tell the high school performers is that they still have to be true to the intent of the writer.”

And true they were, earning the laughter and rapt attention of the 200 pupils gathered around the small elementary school stage at one of the morning performances, which included such diverse works as “If I Were a Sink,” by third-grader Eric Petkus.

As two high school students re-created the everyday travails of a restroom sink in a snooty restaurant, a call for Mr. Clean brought an array of well-meaning but quarrelsome cleaning products to the rescue. “Let us all remember,” one of the cleansers intoned, “sinks have feelings too.”

In “A Lost Dog,” by second-grader Sheryl Chen, Owen Hemsath, 15, played the part of a runaway pooch named Trouble, who is befriended by a kindly witch who takes him home on her broomstick.

“When I was a kid, people like this always used to come to my school,” Hemsath said. “This is kind of like a dream come true for me. I always wanted to do this.”