PlayWrite, Inc.
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Mission Statement
PlayWrite’s mission is to transform the lives of youth at the edge using the power of performance in art.
About This Cause
Around the world there are thousands of youth, aged 14-25 years – a crucial period with tremendous brain neuroplasticity – who are living on the edge: emotionally, socially, financially. They are smart, capable, and complex, but they struggle – in school, with their identity, and to be heard. Society hasn’t known how to help them – to find their voice, to find themselves, to change the trajectory of their lives. “Adolescence (from puberty through age 24-25) is a developmental period marked by profound transition, featuring rapid and pervasive physiological, cognitive, emotional, and social changes second only in magnitude to those that occur during infancy. And while this period of extensive transition brings increased vulnerability for problems, it also represents an important sensitive period, or ‘window of opportunity’ for positive change through intervention. This opportunity for growth may be especially important among individuals who were maltreated or otherwise placed at risk during childhood, as these are the youth who are more likely to engage in risky or unhealthy behaviors if problems go unresolved during their transition into adulthood. Thus, for these individuals, adolescence may be a ‘developmental crossroad’ during which time effective intervention can have a significant positive influence on their developmental trajectory.” Over the past ten years PlayWrite has developed an intense, tightly structured one-on-one playwriting workshop; it is an intervention incorporating and adapting traditional theatre exercises informed and modified by research in interpersonal neurobiology and experimental psychology. In the PlayWrite core workshop, coaches work one-on-one with students for two weeks in a sophisticated process to create an original two-character, one-act play. Eight youth work with nine coaches for ten days. Through hands-on experience, students learn the structure of dramatic action, and use a variety of playwright’s tools. Our workshop process is tightly structured, yet within that structure there is absolute freedom for the imagination to roam. PlayWrite coaches never suggest themes, ideas or even words. Every thought and emotion comes directly from the creative heart of the writer. On the final day, each writer direct professional actors, who bring his or her play to life in staged readings before a live audience. Ten workshops are held on-site at various alternative schools and other venues in Oregon, and our goal is to make the workshop available world-wide.