Open Forum

The goal of my summer course is to have students write a play specifically geared to performance by high school actors.

If you have the time, please share the characteristics of a play that would work beautifully for you in your current given circumstances:

How many roles? (For females? Males? Non-gender specific roles?

Run Time?

Set needs?

Costume needs?

Content wishes?

Things to avoid?

Anything else?

Thanks in advance for your time!

What a great project! 

How many roles? (For females? Males? Non-gender specific roles?: 8 females, 5 males, numerous non-gender specific roles, huge ensemble 

Run Time? 90

Set needs? unit set 

Costume needs?

Content wishes? female-centered. Must pass the Bechdel test. 

Things to avoid? 

Anything else?

Good luck. I would love to read the play sometime! 

I love this idea. From a playwright's perspective, under Things to Avoid: 

There are big swathes of the country in which any gay content is a non-starter. But there are also, increasingly, schools where it's not a problem. If it's relevant to the script, some of us add an author's note.  My own reads: 

"You're free to change the genders and/or preferences of the characters. Change the names as necessary. Make small changes as appropriate."

This is a great project! Yes, please share the script when it's finished.

Flexible casting -- able to double or expand from about 12 to 20+ actors; gender-flexible casting if possible, more females than males. Works for a diverse cast but doesn't require specific roles to be played by specific ethnicities.

Doesn't necessarily have to be a unit set, but I'd love some room for creativity and flexibility in the set design. I like fun costumes, not just modern-day street clothes. Minimal costume changes.

I agree that it needs to pass the Bechdel test. I like stories in which the male and female characters are equally strong and interesting. I prefer a female protagonist since I usually have more female performers. Female characters need to be defined by more than their romantic/sexual relationships.

Content -- something challenging. My students like meaty roles and plays with something to say. Truthful characters. We're not fans of your typical high school fare. I gravitate toward stories based on something historical or literary, but that isn't necessary. I also like imaginative plays, like Still Life with Iris.

Content warnings -- we can do LGBTQ themes if they're subtle. My audience is not ready for any on-stage intimacy, though. Fighting/violence is okay, but if there's sexual violence, I'd prefer it be off-stage. Mild alcohol/drug use, mild language, mild adult themes are okay. 

If this is a non-musical, options to add music/singing if desired is a huge bonus.

• Write plays with physical and environmental actions in mind. So many contemporary plays consist of characters just talking, with little to no stage action rooted in a specific environment-it's all talk, no action. As an example, Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap (despite its flaws) offers a good blend of dialogue, character, and physical/psychological action.

• This may be controversial, but I'm tired of the shallow moralism in so many "issues" plays. They rarely allow for complexity or ambiguity; the audience is led dogmatically to an overly obvious moral conclusion well before the curtain falls. Say what you will about the man, but David Mamet has written incisively about this problem in contemporary theatre. Playwrights like Lynn Nottage (Intimate Apparel) and John Patrick Shanley (Doubt) avoid this trap. They don't preach. They allow villainy to exist in characters where it "shouldn't," and they allow virtue to appear where lesser playwrights might resort to caricature.

This is an interesting idea – basically solving a specific problem – so I'm going to suggest a few things from the viewpoint of a retired professional set designer.

I would start with the basic elements of a story: the main character or characters, then what he/she/they want, then why they can't get it (the dramatic conflicts, aka obstacles), then what they do to get around the obstacles, and finally whether they get it or not. Then I would plug in the variables requested in the OP and look at options.

For instance, here's a very simple outline inspired by my own experiences in high school:

Chris (I picked a gender-neutral name) wants to become a world-class professional magician and headline at a Las Vegas resort. But Chris runs into obstacles with his/her parents and bullies at school. However, Chris beats the obstacles and realizes his/her dream. This same outline can become a straight drama, a comedy, a musical, or even a horror story.

So, inserting the characteristics listed in the OP:

How many roles? (For females? Males? Non-gender specific roles?). -- This can become a small, medium, or large show. We need Chris, a friend or two who believe in him/her, the parents, and the bullies, plus a few other characters. It can also be boy/girl, boy/boy, or girl/girl.

Run Time? -- Typical time is probably an hour and a half.

Set needs? -- Sets = locations, so parts of the high school itself, maybe Chris' house, and one or two others. A main unit set with add-ons, and none of it needs to be movie-realistic. At the end, the school stage becomes the Las Vegas stage.

Costume needs? -- Here's where Chris and friend can be shown to be "different" than the girls and guys who are picking on them. Maybe they don't have as much money as the cool kids, or they have more money, which may add a twist or jealousy. At the end, Las Vegas glitz.

Content wishes? -- As I mentioned above, Chris and friend can be boy/girl, boy/boy, girl/girl, or even indeterminate. Pass the Bechdel test? Sure. Maybe Chris and friend are both female, and they talk about their future careers and the obstacles.

Things to avoid? -- Two-dimensional characters, sets that try to be movie-realistic, tropes from teenage movies, silly monologues.

Anything else? -- Chris doesn't actually have to perform magic, although we can show him/her practicing something and getting interrupted, maybe by the bullies (the story isn't about Chris' magic, it's about Chris making it to Vegas). The story can end with Chris being introduced at the Vegas venue and then walking on stage to huge applause: Chris made it! Also, the story should allow for a bit of humor, not necessarily comedy. This is part of what makes characters appear human rather than black-and-white.

By having a rough story outline first, it's much easier to make those choices (to define the characteristics) because we can see how, or if, they fit the story.

This is a cool idea.

For runtime, it would be nice if it was competition-length. Judges tend to love new scripts! That could look like anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the guidelines of the events near you.

Other suggestions (and I'll try not to repeat the good ones already suggested):

• Movement! The play should demand that it be rehearsed on its feet. (Am I the only one with this issue when kids 'rehearse' independently in class - from their seats - because 'The characters just stand there, we don't need to stage it'?)
• Best: Have each character be "up to something." There are great plays where one or two lead characters drive the whole story, but for a school program, create for every participant a role they can enjoy building.
• My students, when they talk about past productions, say they had the most fun doing the comedies. They also say the "best" shows they have done are the more heavy dramas. So when creating your own, find the humor in the dark places, and find dark twists to the humor. 
• I do really like the idea of adding a disclaimer giving permission to alter casting relative to gender and other identifiers. I feel Don Zolidis does this very well, even specifying the specific characters that he feels work "best" as a certain demographic, but still leaving it open to the performing company.

Good luck!

Thanks so much everyone! Your responses are SO valuable and I am going to share all of them with my students. Please keep them coming!

Each student will write a play and so, once the course is done, I will definitely ask them if they are willing to share  theirs with you. 

So--Please stay tuned!

Regarding the suggestion for doing a horror play, I have to say, that can be dicey due to the school district's discomfort with that genre.  I say this because my nephew loved the short Wizard of Oz horror parody play, "A Taste of Oz" by Robin Blasberg, but his school would never consider it.  It would have made a great show for Halloween.  You might be able to get away with an Edgar Allan Poe piece, though, because of Poe's fame.