Open Forum

Hey everyone, Nevada is setting up a state level playworks for students this year.  For the states that currently have one in place, how are you winners selected and how many adults do you have involved in the process.

Right now we are planning on setting up an adult committee to select the winning plays, we are just trying to think of how many people would be the right number for this process.

For all of you already in school I hope it is going well, for those of use starting soon (tomorrow) have a great year and see you in Minnesota

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Alan Strait
Teacher
CCSD


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In Georgia, we have two board members (conveniently a husband and wife) who coordinate our PlayWorks program. They create the paperwork/processes/procedures. They collect submissions and send them to a professional playwright who agrees to read them and select one play (sometimes two) and a couple of monologues (we also include monologues as part of our PlayWorks program) to be workshopped at our conference. The playwright comes to our conference and works with the authors and a cast for a reading/analysis of the work in front of an audience in a workshop setting. We pay that professional the same rate we pay our conference guest artists.
Last year we added a new component. We selected one of the submissions from the year before and mounted a production of the play at conference in a performance space as one of our conference performances (One director volunteered to cast and direct with her own students). The author was involved somewhat in the production and then talked with the audience after the conference performance about the experience/lessons learned (as did the cast members).
We jumped in knowing that it might not be perfect; that we would learn a lot along the way. And we did. We anticipate doing this again.

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Frank Pruet
EdTA Vice President

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Original Message:
Sent: 08-25-2013 15:42
From: Alan Strait
Subject: State Level Playworks

Hey everyone, Nevada is setting up a state level playworks for students this year.  For the states that currently have one in place, how are you winners selected and how many adults do you have involved in the process.

Right now we are planning on setting up an adult committee to select the winning plays, we are just trying to think of how many people would be the right number for this process.

For all of you already in school I hope it is going well, for those of use starting soon (tomorrow) have a great year and see you in Minnesota

-------------------------------------------
Alan Strait
Teacher
CCSD


-------------------------------------------

Arizona has a playworks process in place as well. We use a coordinator from a community theatre. He is also a playwright. He reads and chooses two or three to workshop depending on the submissions. He uses two professional playwrights (Lindsay Price and Stephen Gregg) for the project.   Everyone who submits a play gets feedback.  The first adjustments are done before festival. Then at festival...playwrights meet with directors on Friday afternoon. Auditions are held Friday evening and then they work the plays all day Saturday and perform late Saturday afternoon.  An award is given to the best one.... (Jerome McDonough Award- He used to come to our festival before he died so we thought that would be a nice way to honor him!) You can go to our website and check out the requirements www.arizonathespians.org.  Feel free to contact us if you need any more information. Linda Phillips
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Linda Phillips
Arizona

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Original Message:
Sent: 08-26-2013 00:38
From: Frank Pruet
Subject: State Level Playworks

In Georgia, we have two board members (conveniently a husband and wife) who coordinate our PlayWorks program. They create the paperwork/processes/procedures. They collect submissions and send them to a professional playwright who agrees to read them and select one play (sometimes two) and a couple of monologues (we also include monologues as part of our PlayWorks program) to be workshopped at our conference. The playwright comes to our conference and works with the authors and a cast for a reading/analysis of the work in front of an audience in a workshop setting. We pay that professional the same rate we pay our conference guest artists.
Last year we added a new component. We selected one of the submissions from the year before and mounted a production of the play at conference in a performance space as one of our conference performances (One director volunteered to cast and direct with her own students). The author was involved somewhat in the production and then talked with the audience after the conference performance about the experience/lessons learned (as did the cast members).
We jumped in knowing that it might not be perfect; that we would learn a lot along the way. And we did. We anticipate doing this again.

-------------------------------------------
Frank Pruet
EdTA Vice President

-------------------------------------------






Original Message:
Sent: 08-25-2013 15:42
From: Alan Strait
Subject: State Level Playworks

Hey everyone, Nevada is setting up a state level playworks for students this year.  For the states that currently have one in place, how are you winners selected and how many adults do you have involved in the process.

Right now we are planning on setting up an adult committee to select the winning plays, we are just trying to think of how many people would be the right number for this process.

For all of you already in school I hope it is going well, for those of use starting soon (tomorrow) have a great year and see you in Minnesota

-------------------------------------------
Alan Strait
Teacher
CCSD


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