From the South Mountain YMCA:
The South Mountain YMCA Teen Theatre Program is excited to dive into another 9 Week Shakespeare Adaptation Workshop, beginning January 20th, 2019, studying The Tempest. After a successful inaugural year of reading, writing, editing and performing an adaptation of A New Orleans Nightmare, our rendition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we are ready to tackle the storm.
Last year, some of Maplewood/South Orange’s finest young playwrights took the story you know and love on a journey across the ocean down to New Orleans in 1961. A new mayor was about to take office, 4 friends found themselves in a lovers quarrel, the Voodoo queens were feuding and the all star jazz band found themselves without their leading vocalist. This year, on the night of the storm, will we discover that the crashing waves were caused by mother nature? Or perhaps, a magical, or mysterious, intervention? How are we going to take the Bard’s final work and make it new again?
As a company, we will read through the script and begin working on our adaptation text. What does it mean to choose a theme? How do we build characters that have depth and relatability? How do we craft a new work with a clear beginning, middle and end that has both conflict and resolution? By using the Dramatic Story Arc, we will examine the 8 progressive steps to writing a perfect scene, workshop our drafts, edit re-writes, and share our finished product.
Our first writing seminar date will be January 20th, 2020. We will meet every Monday and Wednesday from 5:00pm to 8:00pm at the First Presbyterian and Trinity Church at 111 Irvington Avenue in South Orange. Our staged reading performance date is scheduled for March 28th, 2020.
For more information, please email Justine Evyn Saliski at jsaliski@metroymcas.org, and to register, please call the Welcome Center at 973-762-4145.
