In July, the Saax Bradbury Players take the program to the next level with a one-act festival featuring original works of one-act plays, spoken word pieces, and skits to highlight life as teens. The festival takes us through the ups, downs, and hysterical moments of the teenage years we all can relate to. The Saax Bradbury Players directed, produced, performed, marketed, and created the entire show.
Two years ago before COVID delayed the opening of We: teenagers from ages 13-19 years old submitted original one-act dramas, comedies, and spoken word. The one-act shows are about teenage life including such subjects as freedom, creativity, empowerment, peer pressure, college, GPA, acceptance, and many more of the issues teens face today.
Also included in We: is 21 Chump Street by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
21 Chump Street is a fourteen-minute one-act musical with book, music, and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is known for creating the Broadway musicals In the Heights, Bring It On the Musical, and Hamilton. The show was based on the second act of episode #457 of This American Life, titled “What I Did For Love” and reported by Robbie Brown, in which a high school student, Justin Laboy, falls in love with an undercover police officer, and is arrested for selling drugs to the officer to impress her. The musical is based on this real event and the writer even chose to keep Justin’s name in the show. The title is a satirical reference to the 1987 TV show 21 Jump Street which was about undercover narcotics agents in a high school. The musical premiered in a showcase put on by This American Life, held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on June 7, 2014, and broadcast as episode #528, “The Radio Drama Episode”.
Teens will identify with this powerful show but so will anyone who lived through these tumulus years.
WE: A Coming of Age Festival runs from July 9, 10, 16, & 17 at 7:30 p.m.; and July 11 & 18 at 2 p.m. Rated PG-13.
Directed by Abigail Oliver
Produced by Callan Whitley
Choreographed by Kasen Walker
Click the link to buy tickets today or call 252-633-0567.
WE: is sponsored by anonymous in honor of colonial capital humane society and supported through a grant from the anonymous trust.