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Funny/Through the Window by Playwrights Project 
The Playwrights Project rolls out the winners of their 17th California Young Playwrights Contest at the Globe's Cassius Carter Centre Stage featuring plays with a decidedly philosophical bent. 16-year-old actor, dancer, and now playwright Rachael Van Wormer is a student at Chula Vista's Hilltop High. Her dark comedy Funny takes us on a tour of deeply profound debates. A few of the subjects include whether or not time travel is possible, do we have free will, and does the experience of life hold any substantial value in the whole scheme of things.
The conversation takes place between three teenage friends, two boys and a girl who keep finishing off each other's thoughts -- a style of dialogue that is at first a little difficult to follow but soon seems strangely natural. Their train of thought goes off on several intriguing tangents while skirting some tragic incident that the girl desperately wants to know more about, but which the boys keep trying hard to avoid. Rachael's compelling and unusal play is at various times "funny," thought provoking, and disturbing, but never boring. Assuring that is three fine young actors and excellent direction by Delicia Turner-Sonnenberg. Daisy Cross, the Girl, attends the Coronado School of the Arts, and her training shows as she deftly portrays the frustrated, traumatized victim of her two male friends. She plans on entering the Playwrights Project contest next year. Her fellow cast member Jason Connors, one of the two clownish but cruel boys, was a contest winner last year with his script Oldtimers. Following up Funny on opening night was Amanda Smith's highly amusing Through the Window. When Amanda penned the first draft earlier this year, it simply featured a high school girl preparing to run away as a rebellion against the pressure she had been putting on herself to overachieve in school. Through a stroke of genius, she put a Peter Pan spin on the story. Now, on the night Wendy is packing to leave, the pizza boy named Peter encourages her to stop pushing herself to achieve greatness and instead just do whatever she wants to do, even if it's less demanding stuff like delivering pizza (not to knock the pizza delivery profession in any way, shape, or form). In other words, he offers her a chance to "not grow up," and instead play around the rest of her life, doing as little as possible to get by.  Inspired by friends who considered an "A-" to mark a cataclysmic end of their world, Amanda's play is not so much an argument against having ambitions as it is a reminder not to take everything in life so seriously. Relax a little! That message, and this play (her first, although she is a lifelong writer), has already been performed three times in its short life. She credits Director Amy Cook for helping her refine the play in its third production, building in some more motivations for the characters doing the things they do. Amanda also added in some new humor that had the audience rolling. And turning in terrific performances were Emily Birnbaum as the overachieving Wendy, Ben Goldin as the laidback pizza delivery boy who encourages her to join him and his Lost Boys in doing as little as possible, and D. Candis Paule as Wendy's mother whose wry cuts on Peter "the Pizza Boy" were a riot.
The other two winners of the contest were Details by Dolly Moehrle and The Point of You by Robert Piluso. Those will be reviewed separately. For more information on the Playwrights Project, please visit their website at www.playwrightsproject.com. Rob Hopper San Diego Playbill ~ Cast ~
~ Funny ~ Girl: Daisy Cross Adam: Derek Travis Collard Dennis: Jason Connors Playwright: Rachael Van Wormer Director: Delicia Turner Sonnenberg Fight Coordinator: Nathan Hedrick Stage Manager: Pam Benjamin ~ Through the Window ~ Wendy: Emily Birnbaum Ellen: D. Candis Paule Nicole: Tess McIntyre Michael: Jack Novak Peter: Ben Goldin Playwright: Amanda Smith Director: Amy Cook Stage Manager: Adam Day |