Being a freshman, playwriting was something that I had rarely tried out. As a result, I felt nervous going into this unit because it was one of the only forms of writing that I had little to no experience with.

As the Creative Writing Department usually does, we read a lot of the specific kind of writing before we try our hand in creating a piece of our own. As we were reading some different plays with our artist-in-residence, Sara Brody, a feeling of dread started to form inside me. I didn’t have even a fainest clue about what I was going to write my ten-minute play about. Even though most people didn’t have ideas, I still felt like I was the only one. 

For the end of every unit in Creative Writing I and II, all the students put together a final piece that includes all new skills learned throughout the unit. Playwriting was no exception.  After a week of workshopping these plays, the students turn in all scripts and Isaiah Dufort, our department head, Heather Woodward, and Sara Brody, our artist-in-residence chose the lucky plays that will be cast and performed at our playwriting show which happened last week. 

Being a freshmen, my play was not chosen for the show (thank goodness) but I was worried if my play would even make it through the extensive week of workshopping. It did make it though and despite my attitude toward it when I first wrote the play, I ended up with a decent ten minute skit.  

When I finally came up with an idea for my play, I didn’t like it, but my play was due on Monday, and it was Friday and I had already written a little of my play and it was too late to change my idea. I spent many weekend nights hating what I was writing and then, on the weekend, I slowly began to actually enjoy myself. That’s when my play was the best, when I accepted that the first draft wasn’t going to be perfect and that I required time to really become interested in my idea to push it to its best potential. 

The best part of the playwriting show was the casting process. It was interesting to figure out who worked for which role. When I was asked to try out different roles, it was the first bit of acting I had done since middle school. Most plays and musicals at Ruth Asawa SOTA are put on by the more performative departments such as Musical Theater or Theater. I think that the Creative Writing shows always turn out good, despite the fact that we are not a performative department. 

My parts in the play were playing two children. One of them is living in a sad suburban midwestern town that had pretty much nothing going on. The other one lives in a suburban town full of people with wacky christmas lawn decor.  They were both different characters with different emotions and personalities. 

This show was an opportunity to act and be a part of a bigger thing. Both are things that don’t often happen in a normal high school.

— Otto Handler, Class of 2022