Plays for Young Performers
SALLY CALVO, NICK YOUNGBLOOD, EMMETT DRISCOLL, ELIZABETH BINDSCHADLER, and SAGE LANG-WOODWARD in THE WAVE (AND WHAT CAME AFTER), ACT THEATRE, 2025
The Wave (and what came after) was commissioned by ACT Theatre for their Young Core Company, and presented on the mainstage at ACT July 25 - 27, 2025.
The Wave (and what came after)
Nominee: Theatre Puget Sound Gregory Award for Outstanding Ensemble (first youth production ever to be nominated!), 2025
When failing TikToker, Penguin, and their sardonic sidekick, Bob, decide to turn their channel into an eco-anarchist-prank show, they just think it will be an easy way to get the attention of the masses (and earn the approval of Penguin's real estate mogul mother). But when they find themselves as the unlikely faces of a real eco-anarchist collective, they learn that what they do can actually – maybe?? - make a difference, that hope holds best in community, and that love (not likes) is the most powerful catalyst for action we've got.
“As a lifelong theater enthusiast, I was in heaven. [We] were completely captivated—not just by the production itself, but by the powerful message it conveyed. We haven’t stopped talking about it since.” - Audience feedback
Approximate run time: 60-70 minutes
Cast: 14 - 22 teenaged performers; 1 male role, 1 female role, all other roles gender-flexible.
THE CAST OF MARVELOUS AT MONTCLAIR KIMBERLEY ACADEMY, 2019
Marvelous is an original adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, commissioned by Seattle Children’s Theatre Drama School
Marvelous
The year is 1932. Kai and Gertie are best friends who've grown up together in a traveling circus. Gertie's mom is the famous trapeze artist Lula Lane, Kai is the famous Boy Wonder, whose angelic voice is said to heal any ailment, and Gertie is...not special in any way.
One morning, Kai disappears. And Gertie's in for another shock: Kai's bunk mate, Sal the Educated Pig, can talk—just like all the other animals in the circus. Virgil the Snake confirms that Kai has been taken by the circus world's most nefarious sorceress: The Snow Queen.
So, our heroes go on a quest to rescue Kai. Along the way, they are captured (and then befriended) by Lou, the robber kid, who helps them with their plan to tempt The Snow Queen's henchmen into kidnapping Gertie, too.
But here, things go a little sideways. The henchman does show up, but in a surprising form, and Gertie does make it to The Snow Queen's camp, but she finds something very different there than what she was expecting.
In the end, Gertie learns that there's more than one way to be special and that even the most "unmagical" of us can make a difference in the world.
Approximate run time: 60-75 minutes
Cast: 12-40 performers, middle school age and above; 3 female roles, 1 male role, 1 non-binary role, all other roles gender-flexible.