Photos by Taylor Bishop
Arizona School for the Arts will debut an original play this weekend, thanks to a unique opportunity provided through a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts last year.
The play, “One Act,” is a new work by local playwright Dwayne Hartford, an associate artist and playwright in residence at local theatre company Childsplay. Hartford led high school theatre students at Arizona School for the Arts through a series of workshops that illuminated the playwriting process.
Xanthia Walker, director of “One Act” and chair of the theatre department at Arizona School for the Arts, said the faculty at the school devised the project as a way to provide a fresh perspective on the creative process for their students.
“So many times when you’re in high school theatre, you pick up all these scripts that have already been published, and you don’t have an opportunity to see how they got to be the way they are,” Walker said. “So…we came up with the idea of commissioning a play…in the style that it would be a learning experience…and that it would be totally transparent to the students.”
Walker and other members of the theatre faculty proposed the idea to Hartford, who immediately expressed interest. The next step was to find a way to fund the project.
The faculty soon found monetary support thanks to an Arts Learning Grant provided by the state-funded Arizona Commission on the Arts.
Arizona Commission on the Arts reviews applications from schools and community and social service-based organizations twice a year. Recipients are selected based on a variety of criteria, including the quality of the project, the participant learning that would occur and the feasibility of the proposal, according to Alex Nelson, director of arts learning at the commission.
Nelson said Arizona School for the Arts submitted a proposal that met all of the required criteria, with “a really high quality artist residence program.”
“All of our grants are there to support our mission, which is to ensure that all Arizonans are able to experience and participate in the arts,” said Steve Wilcox, communications and research director at Arizona Commission on the Arts.
The matching funds for the grant received by Arizona School for the Arts were provided by the school’s Thespian troupe, which led fundraising for the project.
Hartford began leading students through the play development process beginning last spring. He began by asking the students to break up into small groups and pitch ideas for an original play. Hartford said he wanted the students to feel ownership over the play, and that in choosing an idea to pursue, he hoped to find a project “that was interesting to them and also interesting to me.”
“A theme that was coming through…was this idea of the pressures and stresses of being a teenager in 2014,” Hartford said.
Next, Hartford had the students work on developing scenarios that had to do with this central idea. He also led sessions where he asked students to share personal experiences that dealt with pressures they faced. Hartford said the stories they shared inspired many of the characters in the play.
“They were very honest, and open, and generous, and brave…It was quite moving,” he said.
Later in the semester, Hartford began bringing in pages and drafts for feedback, and led a series of revision and development workshops. Walker said the students did a staged reading of the play at the end of the school year, and Hartford continued to make edits over the summer. Rehearsals for the finished play, “One Act,” began in September.
The play tells the story of a school for performing arts (similar to Arizona School for the Arts) that has entered a one-act play competition in Las Vegas. The ensemble consists of 12 actors, with other high school students taking on technical and design roles.
Maya Granger, assistant director of “One Act,” is a senior this year at Arizona School for the Arts. She hopes to pursue playwriting in college, and said that working with Hartford had provided valuable insight on the creative process.
“He brought a very different perspective,” Granger said. She described the process of watching the story come to life on stage as “empowering.”
Walker said she hoped the play would inspire the audience to recall what it felt like to make the transition from teenager to adult.
“For adults that have already been through that, and other teenagers, I think it’s always a really powerful thing to see what you’re going through reflected onstage,” Walker said. “I hope that people feel a connection—either a connection to what they experienced…or a connection to what they’re going through now.”
“One Act” will run October 25th through November 2nd at Phoenix Center for the Arts, which located at 1202 N 3rd Street. Friday and Saturday shows start at 7pm, with Sunday matinees at 2pm. Tickets are $10 and can be ordered online at http://oneact.brownpapertickets.com .
Contact the reporter at Faith.Anne.Miller@asu.edu.
