Gulf Alliance for Local Arts (GALA) proudly presented the Florida Studio Theater’s (FST) WRITE A PLAY programs to all six public schools in Gulf County.  Six actors were here to cover the programs that ran Monday-Thursday, January 25-28, 2010.

The WRITE A PLAY Program is an in-school arts initiative, designed to inspire students to be creative and to write plays. From the heartfelt "Girl with One Arm" to the hilarious "I Dreamed I Married a Chicken," both written by program students, these tender plays celebrate the poetic imagination of our youth. Last year, over 55,000 youth participated in this dynamic award-winning program.  At the end of the program, the students were encouraged to write and submit their own plays.  FST received plays from over 9,200 young playwrights in the State of Florida and around the world for the Young Playwrights Festival, which takes place each spring culminating the program.  Winning playwrights are awarded scholarships.
 
The one-day workshops for middle and high schools feature four introductory in-class workshops that includes playwriting, sketch-comedy or screenwriting residency.  Students in these four classrooms will learn the four elements of playwriting (setting, character, conflict, dialogue). Students will also see an example of a student-written play performed live in their classroom by FST teaching artists. Together, students and teaching artists will brainstorm and improvise a short class play. Students will receive final comments and suggestions on how to improve their play, sketch or screenplay prior to submission to the Young Playwrights Festival.
 
The elementary program features a play that inspires writing, setting, character, conflict and dialogue. Professional actors will perform at least 2 award-winning plays written by youth as a model, in addition to using improvisation and participatory learning as tools to inspire writing. This show is meant to inspire students to write their own plays and participate in the 2010 Young Playwrights Festival.  Afterwards, 4 one-hour workshops in the classroom are scheduled.
 
There is also a one teacher-training workshop per school that is geared to empower teachers and give them the tools necessary to establish a creative classroom.  All workshops fulfill the following strands outlined in the Sunshine State Standards:  Language Arts, Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, Editing for Language, Publishing Creative Writing, Listening and Speaking Theatre Arts, Creation and Communication.

Florida Studio Theatre's WRITE A PLAY Program is currently celebrating 18 years of inspiring children from Kindergarten to 12th Grade.

The program is sponsored, presented and coordinated by GALA and sponsored in part by Forgotten Coast Cultural Coalition.