Teen Drama, American Drama

New Plays from A.C.T.'S Young Conservatory, Vol. 1

Name: New Plays from A.C.T.'S Young Conservatory, Vol. 1
Author: Craig Slaight
ISBN: 9781880399255

by Craig Slaight (Editor), Young Conservatory

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Overview

Five exciting new plays by professional playwrights written for the Tony Award-winning American Conservatory Theater.

Ascension Day, By Timothy Mason

Nine young people struggle for independence, personal identity, love, and the promise of the future at a Lutheran Bible camp in Wisconsin in 1947

Windshook, By Mary Gallagher

A group of teenagers tell the story of a family at odds with each other and a mysterious stranger who changes their lives forever.

Reindeer Soup, By Joe Pintauro

A motherless family tries to survive in the frozen tundra of Northern Canada in the face of a hostile environment, a dysfunctional father, a mystic eskimo, and a reindeer named Norman.

Sightings and High Tide, By Brad Slaight

In the first of these two one-act plays, an unusual prom night finds three teenagers wrestling with social pressures, complicated by a promised visit from afar. In the second, a chance meeting with two girls on a Southern California beach helps two young men sort out their feelings about the death of their best friend.

Synopsis

The five plays in this volume were produced at the American Conservatory Theater's Young Conservatory. They include: "Ascension Day" by Timothy Mason, "Windshook" by Mary Gallagher, "Reindeer Soup" by Joe Pintauro, and "Sightings" and "High Tide" by Brad Slaight.

Library Journal

Based in San Francisco, A.C.T.'s Young Conservatory is a professional theater training program for people eight to 18 years old. Editor Slaight, director of the conservatory, has published several volumes of scenes and monologs and began the New Plays program with the goal of developing plays that view the world through the eyes of youth. Playwrights featured here are Paul Zindel, Timothy Mason, Brad Slaight, and Lynn Alvarez. Exemplifying the issues touched by these plays, Paul Zindel's Every 17 Minutes the Crowd Goes Crazy focuses on a family of eight children left on their own by parents who ran away to pursue a life of gambling. Thought-provoking and sometimes chilling, these four plays offer challenging roles for young performers. Recommended for comprehensive drama collections serving the high school and college levels.Howard E. Miller, Alliance Blue Cross & Blue Shield Lib., St. Louis

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Editorials

Library Journal

School Library Journal

Gr 10 UpOne of the problems with play collections for YAs is that most of them seem to go for universality and longevity and have little relevance to the kids who are asked to perform them. This compilation of four plays contains new works commissioned to reflect a "young point of view." After the first draft, the play is developed in rehearsal and the input of the actors is given serious consideration. The vigor and immediacy of the selections attests to the validity of the method. Mature in subject matter and language, these are not namby-pamby exercises, but thought-provoking material for today's teens. They are of varying quality, but even the weakest dramatically, a series of vignettes about high-school life, contains moments of touching reality. The strongest, a heartbreaker by Paul Zindel in which four materially indulged siblings are abandoned by their parents, has the shortest shelf life. It seethes with brand names, rock stars, tabloid headlines, and other modern-culture references that make it a play for today. The other two refer to the recent past. In one, a young Mexican-American attempts to fit into his mother's Mexican village. The other, strong scenes from American school life in the 60s, evokes emerging social issues without resorting to clich. All will have meaning for today's young actors and avoid the stagnancy of so many play collections now moldering on your shelves.Sally Margolis, formerly at Deerfield Public Library, IL