Each year, Playscripts teams up with the Keen Company for Keen Teens, a festival of short plays written specifically for teen actors. This year, I’m writing one! It’s a daunting yet, I bet, ultimately rewarded task.  I saw the one acts a few summers back and was amazed at the depth of material the young actors could handle. And then I remember: when I was that age, I pretty much understood everything. And it wasn’t even that I thought I did – like, I actually did. It was Uta Hagen, or some other important person, that said that by age of 15 – we’ve experienced all emotions: love, loss, wrath, etc. So I think the challenge is to, well, challenge the actors – not talk down to them, but to trust the breadth of their knowledge.

So I guess I will just go do that now! I’m re-inventing my Reality / The Bachelor play ‘Real’ for these purposes.  I will begin my channeling my teen self. I don’t quite know what that means, but I think I will start with putting blue streaks in my hair, writing lots of moon-based poetry, making balloon arrangements and eating lots of McDonalds. Or maybe, that was just me.