New Noises Playwriting Festival at Boston University

This week was an engaging and exciting week for our Theater classes. Shakespeare for Modern Actors culminated in its study of Much Ado About Nothing with a field trip to see an incredible performance of the play at The Actors’ Shakespeare Project in Cambridge.  Complete with live musical selections of songs from the likes of Beyonce and Miley Cyrus, this crowd-pleasing romp defined modern Shakespearean Theater for our students.  A fabulous way to spend a rainy Wednesday!

This Thursday was the much anticipated New Noises Festival at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre.  The festival brought us together with four other schools: Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School, The Sparhawk School, Malden High School and Lexington Christian Academy, for a day of original 10 minute plays written by playwrights from the schools themselves.  All of our Play Production students spent a great deal of time writing their plays this semester.  They were visited by a guest playwright, Bill Lattanzi, whose work has been featured on stage and screen for decades.  Mr. Lattanzi helped them to shape and structure their pieces.

After all was said and done, the work of all of these students was truly wonderful.  Two plays were chosen to receive a performance in which the playwrights worked directly with professional theater artists to create a staging of the play.  Madi Castonguay ’19 and Kathryn Ward ’18  were selected.  Madi’s play was a clever romance with a touch of “It’s A Wonderful Life” and Kathryn’s play explored the interesting dynamic between four women in three generations of a family who are quite different from one another, yet forced to relate.  Micaela Trzcinski’s ’18 piece about a loving relationship that turns sour was selected to be read as part of a cold reading workshop.  It was a full day of youthful theater, vibrant and vital:  a celebration of our students, their generation, their voices!

Kevin Crowley
Theater