Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 4, April 2004

Copyright 2004 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article below in your research. Be sure to cite the Seattle Sun as your source.

Young playwrights to be featured

at theater festival

By JAMES BUSH

Two local high school seniors will see their plays performed alongside the work of top Seattle playwrights at the Third Annual FringeACT Festival.

Megan Krantz, a senior at Ballard High School, and Ballard resident Miles Strucker, a senior at NOVA alternative high school, were among six student playwrights selected citywide for this honor. Both were participants in ACT Theatre's 10-week Young Playwrights Program, which brings local playwrights into theater classes at eight area high schools.

Although it's not a requirement of the program, both students ended up having their plays directed by the playwright who worked with their class. Amy Wheeler will direct Strucker's "An Honest Lie," while Wayne Rawley will direct the Krantz-penned musical "Pocket Change of Love."

Rawley, a Ballard resident whose adaptation of George Orwell's "1984" recently completed a successful run at Fremont's Empty Space Theater, says the goal of the program was for each participating student to complete a play. "A lot of them came in at the very last minute and under duress," he jokes.

Rawley and the other seven "teaching artists" from the school programs were the first level of review for some 100 student plays, an experience which left him glad that he didn't have to participate in making the final cut down to the six works to be performed at the festival. "All the plays were just great," he says. "It blew us away how good the stuff was."

Krantz probably earned extra points for her unique contribution to the competition. While most of the other students prepared ten-minute plays, she had already written the songs and the storyline for a 45-minute-plus musical and used her class time to polish her earlier effort. Krantz, an aspiring singer/songwriter who says she's been performing "pretty much all my life," came up with the concept and the songs for her musical during a two-day period last summer.

Strucker says he's had the idea for his play in his head for a long time, but credits the class with providing the discipline to get his work on paper. "I basically was given a deadline, so I was forced to write it," he says.Both playwrights have onstage experience: Krantz started taking acting classes at Seattle Children's Theater as a second-grader. A self-confessed "wild child," she says she craved attention and saw being on stage as a good way to get it. She has appeared in several Ballard High School productions, most recently as Golda in "Fiddler on the Roof." Strucker has also taken acting classes and was featured in one of the student productions in last year's FringeACT Festival.

Both their plays involve odd couples: "Pocket Change of Love" tells the story of a girl from a family of thieves who falls in love with a honest baker. When the baker's possessions get stolen, the two try to get them back and end up switching roles. Explains director Rawley: "He decides that she will love him more if he's a thief, she decides the opposite and sparks fly."

"An Honest Lie" reunites two childhood friends, tough guy Keen and rich kid Wilbur. Since they've parted, they've also switched roles: Keen has used his natural talents to become a wealthy advertising executive while Wilbur has spurned his family's plans for him to become a corporate lawyer and instead works as a public defender. "They meet after eight years and they have to rediscover their friendship and uncover the mysteries of the past and find the truth in each other," explains Strucker.

Krantz will attend Cornish College of the Arts next year, with an eye toward developing her vocal and songwriting talents. Strucker says he plans to take a year off before attending college and says he will continue as a writer, although perhaps in other mediums.

If the pressure of having their works performed in public is wearing on these young playwrights, they're hiding it well. Asked about her hopes for "Pocket Change of Love," Krantz deadpans that she wants it "to be as successful as Shakespeare. Or "Chicago": one of the two."

The FringeACT Festival is a four-day event, running from Thursday, April 1 through Sunday, April 4 at 700 Union St. The student plays will be performed as a group on Saturday and Sunday between noon and 6 p.m. (order of performance is different both days). Tickets for the festival are $12.50 for one day or $37.50 for a four-day pass. Scheduling and ticket information is available at 292-7676 or www.acttheatre.org.