THROUGH STAGES
Young Playwrights Festival offers frank glimpses of adolescent life
Pegasus Theatre’s Young Playwrights Festival has been in operation for 31 years, along the way capturing the shifting zeitgeist of adolescent life.
Under the program, professional theater artists collaborate with high school teachers and their students throughout Chicago to generate interest in live theater and the tricky art of playwriting. Student entries are then winnowed down through an elaborate process, with four winning plays selected for full professional productions ( with each writer awarded $ 500), six named “finalists” ( and given $ 100 each), and 10 receiving “honorable mentions.”
The subjects dealt with by the 2017 winners are wide- ranging. And what is particularly notable about the current crop of works is the creative ways — sometimes feverish, sometimes comic — in which they each have been envisioned.
In “Decision Day,” Abigail Henkin ( of the Whitney M. Young Magnet School), winningly captures the agony and the ecstasy of the college admissions process with a sophisticated mix of anguish and whimsy.
At the play’s center is Lizzy ( Kristen Alesia), a super achiever who has applied to three schools, each of whom sends her a perfectly embodied recruiter in the form of a “suitor.” From the prestigious Ivy League campus comes the perfectly snooty Wasp, Hyps ( David Flack), who Lizzy finds repellent, even if her single mom ( Amy Johnson), a poorly paid do- gooder lawyer, sees him as the ideal. Lizzy’s fervently desired school of first choice, McDreamy ( Peter Surma), comes in the form of a blonde boy toy who she hopes will reward her with a full scholarship. And from her home university comes State ( Hunter Price), in hot pursuit of Lizzy’s high test scores to bolster his school’s ranking. Offering Lizzy advice and a few reallife lessons is her best friend, Sharmeena ( Meagan Dilwirth), a Muslim classmate who wears a hijab. Under the expert direction of Jerrell L. Henderson, Favela’s sharp, authentic writing is ideally matched by the cast of six actors.
“Bullet with Butterfly Wings,” written by Maday Favela ( of Lane Tech College Prep), and strongly performed under the direction of Emmi Hilger, is a disturbing, all- too- real portrait of a high school student suffering from serious bouts of depression and self- doubt. Ingeniously imagined in the form of a battle of wills, it homes in on Lexa ( Gloria Petrelli), who is continually trying to fend off her dangerously powerful alter ego, the aptly named Leviathan ( Kristen Alesia), who relenetlessly tries to undermine her confidence, and even her will to live. A devoted friend, Juno ( Dilworth), works to help Lexa out of her many crises.
“Monster,” by Mari Glynn ( from Von Steuben High School), is the most feverishly political play on the bill. Set in the interrogation room of a Baltimore police station in the immediate wake of a hugely damaging terrorist attack, it homes in on the plight of Alya ( Petrelli), an innocent suspect, whose Muslim heritage has quickly marked her as the possible perpetrator. Questioning her in a way that suggests she is guilty long before she can prove her innocence is the young detective, Patrick ( Price). Rabidly goading him on from a viewing booth behind a two- way mirror is a veteran officer Arlene ( Amy Johnson), whose daughter and granddaughter are among the victims of the attack, and Richard ( Surma), who ultimately sees how wrong the proceedings have been.
The all- important key to Glynn’s play is the way in which Alya finally comes to terms in the most humane way with the prejudice and hate that wrongly branded her a “monster.” Until then, the play, directed by Ilesa Duncan, producing artistic director of Pegasus, is performed at a somewhat unvarying high pitch.
It is the theme of peer pressure and change that drives “Pencils & Pens,” the zanily imagined comic tale of two high school friends in the form of writing implements. Penned by Aaron Powdermaker ( of Lane Tech), and directed by Duncan, it introduces us to Marshal the pencil ( Surma), and Perry the pen ( Flack). The latter is determined to leave his classroom desk and move on to better things, perhaps by dropping himself into a female student’s backpack. Powdermaker has come up with the evening’s funniest line — about a breakup that results from someone’s girlfriend being “caught sharpening another pencil.” You really have to be there to fully appreciate it. Follow Hedy Weiss on Twitter: @ HedyWeissCritic