Burning Coal Theatre’s KidsWrite program brings young people’s work to the stage
By Elizabeth Brignac
Playwrights may persevere for years before they have the chance to see a theater company perform their work. The challenge of finding professionals who are ready to bring a new writer’s play to the stage is no joke. So when each year, a few of North Carolina’s kids get to experience a company of actors bringing their plays to life on stage, it is an opportunity to which playwrights of all ages aspire.
Each spring in its KidsWrite festival, Raleigh-based Burning Coal Theatre Company performs several short plays written by kids between sixth grade and their senior year of high school. The company treats these performances with the respect they would give plays written by adults. They develop the plays as they would for any other theater festival, consulting with the student playwrights as they develop the performances.
KidsWrite was the brainchild of artistic director Jerome Davis almost two decades ago. “I had the sensation as a young person that I was often told what I might do but never given the chance to do it,” says Davis. “The idea of being able to think of a story, write a story and then help make the story fully realized felt like a rare opportunity for young people.”
Technically, KidsWrite is open to Wake County and surrounding counties. “But if a teacher from somewhere up in the mountains writes and asks if they can do it, we’re not going to say no to them, honestly,” says Davis.
Kids submit plays through their schools or on their own, either by themselves or in groups. Plays must be entirely original. They must not exceed 25 pages, and they must limit character and setting numbers.
The number of plays submitted varies each year, averaging around 30 or 40. The staff collaborates on play selection, choosing as many as the actors can perform in two hours, which usually works out to about five plays per year. As with plays written by adult playwrights, the theater must take practicalities into account as well as writing quality. “We do look at things like how producible it is,” says Davis. “You know, if it has 40 characters in it and they each have to have 10 costume changes, we’re probably going to reconsider that one.” He adds, “There’s an educational component to that aspect, because playwrights do have that restriction … most plays that are done nowadays have under 10 characters in them.”
