Project by: Kalli Jackson (12th Grade)
Faculty Advisor: Chris Keimeg
Please write a description of the project you are proposing. Why do you want to take this on, and what do you hope to learn?
I would like to do an Honors Project where I would write a play because I’m interested in trying out creative writing with a structural style I’be never tried before. I hope to learn how storytelling is changed by variables involved with plays such as setting, costume and independent reliance on dialogue to push the plot.
PROCESS NOTES:
For my Trimester 1 Honors Project, I began with the idea in mind to write a two-act play based on three very different families and how the relationships within each of them are affected by a single tragic event. After reading plays by Anna Deveare Smith, a playwright famous for putting on one-woman shows based on interviews she compiled from a range of people affected by a specific incident that gained media attention, I was inspired to center my own play around the killing of a black boy in a predominantly white suburb. Rather than styling it through interviews the way Smith does, I decided that the setting in my play would exclusively be the living rooms of the three families who tell the story. I wanted to show the interior lives of these families and give a glimpse into the personal trauma that happens behind the scenes of the events we see on the news. The first family is a white family with a daughter coming home from her first full year of college; Steven, Kathryn and Rachel Goodman. The second family is a wealthy black couple, Aiyana and Michael Taylor; Aiyana’s fifteen-year-old son from a past marriage moves in with them on that same day. The last family is a biracial couple, Sandra and Giancarlo Moretti, who are new to the neighborhood and expecting. After Aiyana’s son is shot and killed by a neighbor who assumed he was trespassing on his first day in her home, the three families struggle with the emotions and revelations that take place afterwards. I knew I wanted a play that revealed the complexities of tragedies like this, and raised questions about who “belongs” where, who is dangerous and who is not, what parental fear looks like in different households, where black children can truly achieve safety in America and ultimately, in events such as these, who is at fault?
What began as a two-act play that all took place on the same day, evolved into a three-act play separated into three days significant to the event. The first act is the day Aiyana’s son both arrives and dies, the second act is the day of the funeral and the day his killer is charged with murder, and the third day is the day the charges against the killer are dropped. I learned that trying to condense a story when it simply does not need to be, or isn’t meant to be, makes for rushed and unproductive writing, and that altering the plan to spread it out really helped me develop my own character development writing skills. I also struggled a lot with writing an ending for the play, as I felt i didn’t have a solution to the conflict I had written my whole play around. My advisor made the point that when writing about social/political issues such as these, the writer doesn’t need to have the solution. A conclusion isn’t necessarily a “right answer” and this really helped end my play on the note I wanted it to and hopefully leaves the reader/viewer with the thoughts I also had in mind when I finished writing it. I really enjoyed the challenge of structuring a story using solely dialogue and forcing myself to shy away from the all-too-familiar tool of third person narration. It was very hard for me but very fun and I really enjoyed putting this Honors Project together.
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Open in new tab Project by: Kalli Jackson (12th Grade)
Faculty Advisor: Chris Keimeg
Please write a description of the project you are proposing. Why do you want to take this on, and what do you hope to learn?
I would like to do an Honors Project where I would write a play because I’m interested in trying out creative writing with a structural style I’be never tried before. I hope to learn how storytelling is changed by variables involved with plays such as setting, costume and independent reliance on dialogue to push the plot.
What is your proposed outcome? How will you be able to demonstrate successful completion of this Project?
By the end of the trimester, I want to have written a play with two acts!
