Peak to Peak freshman pens winning script in Denver playwriting competition
Penelope Letter, a freshman at Lafayette’s Peak to Peak Charter School, drew on their background in theater to tackle the challenge of writing a play.
Their idea for their play, “Players, Staged,” was sparked by performing in their school’s production of “The Play That Goes Wrong.” But for their version, they added the representation of the LGBTQ community that they found is missing from most plays.
The one-act comedy, which follows a group of untrained, young queer actors as they attempt to put on their own production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” is one of three high school winners in a Denver playwriting contest.
“I was absolutely surprised,” Penelope said. “I did not expect to be one of the three wining plays. It’s the first time I had really written a full play. It was a new experience for me.”
For the 10th annual Denver Center for the Performing Arts playwriting competition, middle and high school students submitted 179 plays. The top three plays by each age group will be included in the 2023 Playwriting Anthology, while the three winning high school plays will receive a public staged reading as part of next month’s Colorado New Play Summit.
Each winner receives $250, while the winner’s teacher receives a $250 gift certificate for books or classroom supplies. Penelope’s play also will be performed at Peak to Peak during the school day for classmates.
The student playwriting contest, according to a press release, was developed to “spark interest in the arts for Colorado high school and middle school students and to assist budding playwrights in developing their skills and furthering their passion for theatre.”
Penelope wrote the play in Peak to Peak’s Innovation and Design Thinking class, choosing the playwriting contest from several contest options for a required independent project.
“I really like writing,” they said. “I really like theater. I figured playwriting would be fun.”
In the story, the challenges the teens face in putting on the play include half the actors ending up sick with the flu on the day of the play, forcing the rest to try to find replacement actors, even though there’s no time for them to learn their parts.
“It just all goes down terribly,” Penelope said.
They found writing for the stage can be tricky.
“When you write story, you need all this background,” they said. “When you’re writing a play, there’s no place to put all that background information, but you have to incorporate it somehow.”
They decided on a comedy because that’s their favorite genre, though they acknowledged that writing comedy isn’t easy.
“I don’t consider myself to be the funniest person, so it is kind of hard to write a comedy,” they said. “I’m still not sure if the jokes land exactly how I want them to.”
Penelope added they would encourage other students to enter the contest in future years.
“If you want to really go for it, it’s worth trying,” they said. “It’s fun.”
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