A junior at University City High School, Ariel Cowell apparently loves, loves, loves what she’s doing just now, and that is watching her play “Elevated” unfold in rehearsals at the 22nd annual Playwrights Project Plays by Young Playwrights, hosted by the Old Globe in the Cassius Carter Centre Stage Jan. 11 (preview) through 21.
Cowell wrote the play in her sophomore English class, and, yes, she plans to continue writing plays. Her winning script concerns a smart New York woman in a well-paying, dead-end job. The work is one of four winners to receive a full production. Whether by luck or design ” likely the latter ” Cowell, 15, has one of the city’s finest young directors in George Ye.
“I loved writing this play,” she said by e-mail, “and even though I thought it was a class assignment, it was a pleasure to do. Mr. Ye is a great director and adds so much to the play. He is very precise about every little detail, making the play as a whole so much stronger.”
Cowell’s dream vacation is to stay in a villa somewhere, living off smoothies. Her other interests, she says, are volleyball and the “basic teenage passions (shopping and eating).” Her dream college is UC Davis; she’s looking into nursing, and she would also love to be involved with film.
Perhaps Cowell will get an opportunity to chat with La Jolla director/screenwriter Stephen Metcalfe, who stages John Glouchevitch’s “The Courier.” Glouchevitch, 18, attends Harvard Westlake High School in Los Angeles. His play concerns a wounded 19-year-old World War II soldier, whose post-recovery task is to deliver messages of condolence to the family of soldiers who were killed. An older veteran mentors the young courier as he visits and interacts with multiple families.
The author of “Strange Snow,” Metcalfe is perfectly suited to direct the script because both plays dramatize the human cost of war. Metcalfe adapted “Strange Snow,” which concerns a veteran afflicted with post-traumatic stress syndrome, into the film “Jackknife,” which starred Robert De Niro. Other Metcalfe plays produced by the Old Globe include “Vikings,” “The Incredibly Famous Willy Rivers” and “White Linen.”
Metcalfe has read finalists’ plays for Playwright’s Project for several years and two years ago was a playwright’s mentor. “The Courier” is his first directing assignment.
“I was immediately taken with it,” said Metcalf, who remarked that most early plays are autobiographical. “Here we have a young writer setting his play during WWII and furthermore dealing with the subjects of war, sorrow and redemption. The scenes are short and wrenching, a challenge for any actor.”
Metcalfe relishes working with his cast, three of them under age 20. He says we frequently forget what a wealth of talent we have in San Diego.
“In many ways it has felt like the theater I began with in New York in the late ’70s,” he said. “People work other jobs, have school and families; and yet they all come together in the evenings to create something special.”
Metcalfe continues to write plays for stage and screen and will teach a playwriting seminar to MFA students at UCSD later this month. Long associated with the Old Globe, where the world premiere of “Emily” was a huge hit in 1986, the engaging Metcalfe says, “The dude abides.”
Other winning scripts are 17-year-old Katherine Quinn’s “Aftermath of Cassidy Joan,” directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg; and Thomas Hodges’ “Stage Directions,” staged by Ruff Yeager.
Tickets (not on sale at Globe box office) range in price from $50 (opening nights Friday, Jan. 12 or Saturday, Jan. 13, or $80 for both, including receptions) to $15 for adults, $12 seniors/students/military and $10 for groups of 10 or more. Information, schedule of plays and tickets are found at www.playwrightsproject.com or by calling (619) 239-8222.
