What I should say is, are there any teen playwrights today who are attempting one of the two following things:

1. Writing plays that are feature-length, not one act,
2. Have the solid ambition of not only making a living from it, but also trying to spread it out to others?

My name is James Teller, but I usually go by Jamie. Since the fall of 2004, I have completed 6 full-length plays and produced a one-act play as my Theater class final. So if you are interested in my plays, or want to tell me about your theatrical ambitions, just get back at me right here!

JT.

I'd love to look at some of your plays! I've written plays and hope to make it in the film industry. What genre do you write? I'm mainly comedy or love tragedies, which I know are 2 very different genres :) Do you think you could e-mail me one of your scripts?

Well, Australian, since you asked, I will now post some info on the plays I have written thus far.

1. The Hypnotist, or The Prodigal Puppeteer (Sept. 2004 - Jan. 2005)
Two Acts, Runtime approx. 185 mins. Based on songs by Gilbert and Sullivan.
My first full-length play, about a young man, John Irving Henderson, who returns to his hometown, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and starts a hypnotism practice. To help with advertising, he enlists the help of Randolph Bylvyll, a failed puppeteer. But in Act II, he learns that Randolph has a dark side.

2. Richfield, or The Pebbled Orb (Feb. 2005 - Mar. 2005)
Two Acts, Runtime approx. 135 mins. An athletic comic opera.
In the town of Richfield, Ohio, the students at the high school are hotly anticipating the basketball homecoming game, to be played by their team against another team, from Parma, Ohio. After an accident fails to draw the necessary sympathy, the intellectuals and the athletics begin to war. What will the outcome be?

3. All For Money, or The Collapsible Collaboration (Mar. 2005 - Jul. 2005)
Two Acts, Runtime approx. 165 mins. A cinematic comic opera.
Milo Croydon, a New York teenager, runs into Brittany Hiller, heiress to an oil fortune. Indignant at her treatment of him, she quiets him by commissioning him to write the script for an oil documentary her company will fund. Things get complicated when Norman Carruthers, founder and self-appointed King of the Young American People's Gun Association, gets involved.

4. The Syracuse Follies, or The Overtaxed Citizen (Sept. 2005 - Dec. 2005)
Two Acts, Runtime approx. 105 mins. A political comic opera.
The city council of Syracuse, New York, are bored by the lack of activity in their city. Even pigeons don't respect the mayor. But when a huge grant is given to city, it seems that, perhaps, things are looking up. But when Act II rolls around, a surprise is in store.

5. Union Maid, or The Army of the Amazons (Jan. 2006 - Feb. 2006)
Two Acts, Runtime approx. 135 mins. A chronicle play.
Kansas, 1921. Poor immigrants work long hours in wretched conditions to keep the coal trade going. When Alexander Howat, a labor leader, is jailed (by the influence of a coal tycoon), the miners, seeing that protesting is not the way to go, stick to their jobs. But their wives have other plans...

6. What Price My Wallet? (Mar. 2006) First produced May 12, 2006.
One Act, 4 scenes, Runtime approx. 15 mins. A comedy of thievery and revenge.
Shambleheiser, a cloddish businessman, loses his brand-new leather wallet to Grimton, a pickpocket. But Grimton is in debt to Mordante, a crime lord, and must go to work to make some money. How? By going to work for Shamblehesier.

7. Finest, or The Ridiculous Radical (Feb. 2006 - May 2006)
Two Acts, Runtime approx. 165 mins. A radical comic opera.
Two NYPD officers, Gorman and Denton, are feeling bored and past their prime-all assignments are going to the junior officers. But when Nathaniel Burris, a young hippie/radical, and his followers begin bombing ROTC buildings, Gorman and Denton are chosen to go undercover to Nathaniel's hideout in the mountains and arrest him.

These are the plays written so far. Here are a few of my upcoming works:

The Human Way (May 2006 - ?)
Six Parts, 18 Acts, Runtime approx. 1100 mins.
A epic covering a year in the life of Chicago teens. With 162 teenage characters.

Ancestra, or The History of the Oxhearts
Three Acts.
The rise, decline, and rise of an wealthy English family.

Discord
Two Acts. A militaristic opera comique.
In the 1400s, two German dukes have a disagreement which steadily grows into a devastating war.

The Evil Kings of Oz.
Two Acts. A fantastical comic opera.
Ruggedo, the Nome King, plots to take over Oz. Based on the other 39 official Oz books.

Jamie Teller

x

yeah i wrote three plays for two local theatres, for a total of six plays, three acts, acted in all of them, none of them made that much cash or press.

My deepest apologies.

JTella

for what?

They sound great!

my six plays:

The Bad Joke: drama
based on a short story about a cruel joke gone horribly arwy.

Breakfast With Nick: drama
about a family who sits down for breakfast with a man who claims to be satan.

Bebop: drama/monologue
about a jazz musician and a hired gun stuck in a room together with a gun and a single bullet between them

The Devil's Pocket: drama/one-man show.
a story of revenge taken to the extreme, about obsession and the weaknesses of the obsessed.

American Scream: drama/comedy
based on the life of comedian Bill Hicks, a retrospective look at the man and what made him who he was on the cusp of legend.

Geek-Man:drama/tragedy
about a boy obsessed with comic books, who wants nothing more than to be a super-hero himself.

These plays sound quite interesting. I hope you don't give up on them.

JTella

all that i've written so far is comedy. if i try to write something serious i end up getting very cynical with myself in the story and dialogue. the two comedies that i have written have both been parodies of Big Brother and of Final Fantasy 7.

i'm hoping on getting the Final Fantasy script animated, but its taking a LONG time...

These plays sound quite interesting. I hope you don't give up on them.

JTella

Huh? give up on them? what do you mean? all six of those plays have been written, made and preformed before an audience.

When I said, "Don't give up on them," I meant don't let them fall by the wayside and say, "There. They've been performed." Of course, maybe that was never your intention...I really don't know. What I do know is it annoys me to a great extent when someone has written a play, or acted in one, or done some creative act, put it down, and say, "Well, I did it. Now it's time to get serious."

As if this isn't serious stuff. Playwrighting and directing can be highly profitable.

But, anyway, Pakx, that's what I meant. I'm sorry if there was a misunderstanding.

All the best,
JTella

When I said, "Don't give up on them," I meant don't let them fall by the wayside and say, "There. They've been performed." Of course, maybe that was never your intention...I really don't know. What I do know is it annoys me to a great extent when someone has written a play, or acted in one, or done some creative act, put it down, and say, "Well, I did it. Now it's time to get serious."

As if this isn't serious stuff. Playwrighting and directing can be highly profitable.

But, anyway, Pakx, that's what I meant. I'm sorry if there was a misunderstanding.

All the best,
JTella

When a play has been written is it not done? When it has been performed is it still not finished?
Should you not put down a completed project and say that it's done and realise that you must get serious... You can't just do something, have it performed then linger on it for the rest of your life... You have to get serious abouteither the next play you are going to write, the next thing to direct or even the next job you will get even if it's a full time office job just to pay the rent...
When something is finished it is finished, it's can't fall by the wayside...

When a play has been written is it not done? When it has been performed is it still not finished?
Should you not put down a completed project and say that it's done and realise that you must get serious... You can't just do something, have it performed then linger on it for the rest of your life... You have to get serious abouteither the next play you are going to write, the next thing to direct or even the next job you will get even if it's a full time office job just to pay the rent...
When something is finished it is finished, it's can't fall by the wayside...

I'm not saying you should cling on to one project for the rest of your life. I'm just saying that I hate to see someone have a play performed and then never revive it. If it weren't for revivals of already written plays, then most major theatrical companies (and many amateur ones too) would collapse. A play may be revised greatly after its initial performances...I have learned that through my thorough studies of Gilbert & Sullivan annotations. If the play can stand up to revision, or even benefit from it, and continue to be popular as actors, productions, and audiences come and go, then it can be said to be a classic.

But while a play should not be set aside forever, I would never in any case recommend "lingering on it for the rest of your life." And what I meant about "getting serious" is the sad event when it is concluded by an individual that the theater is not "real work," or that it "isn't serious." Then, the writer/director/actor may go into a line of work with greater anonymity than that which they had on or around the stage, and while this may make them happy, it saddens me a bit.

It's hard to put these sentiments into words. Words are the medium of communication on the Internet, but sometimes they can't do what a simple visual gesture can. That's what we need the performing arts for. What words cannot express.

JTella

Oh wow this is cool.

I myself write scripts. Not for plays but hopefully they'll be great movies that I've direct myself.

Two scripts that I've wrote that are really great are

Miranda and the other is call A forever Summer. Me and some frineds actually got some film equipment and made A forever Summer. It looks really nice but you can see it was done my amatuers (sp) but I hope ti get better at the whole filmmaking.

So you write screenplays? Well, I tried it too! I originally intended to be a filmmaker, and back in 5th grade I wanted to a globe-trotting epic called "Our Adventure." Then, half in joke, half hopefully, I proposed to a friend a 9-hour extravaganza called "Americana."

In 2002, I wrote a short script about film-making called "Candid Life." I tried to round a cast, but never got beyond one short scene and an afternoon rehearsing with two friends. In late 2002/early 2003 I wrote another filmmaking script, called "All For Money." This ran 55 pages (!) and I had a bunch of copies made and handed out, but I gave up. Eventually, I converted it to a play script, and was happier with the results.

My latest attempt at cinema: in January of this year, my school announced that it would have a student film festival. On hearing the news, I drew up an outline in English class and got over 25 people to sign up for it. Hearing that the student films could only be 10 minutes long, I decided just to do the film as my own project. I started shooting in March, during lunch, and over the next few weeks got about 6 minutes of footage before a lack of interest on the actors' part caused me to set it aside. There is still hope that this film, "Discord," will be finished.

JTella

What do you think, any of you, about a play that starts out being comic, although not farcically so, and then has a sudden tragedy, namely the death of a handful of major characters, in a freak accident? I'm curious because I am sketching out the frame of a play which might have such an occurence, and I wonder if that could be percieved as too sudden, or too much of a blatant attempt to grab attention, or what. FYI, the play is not at all over with the deaths. The play is in 6 parts, and the accident occurs in Part 4.

JTella

Are any of you interested in Gilbert and Sullivan? Today in Tulsa, I saw G&S's early work "The Sorcerer" with my friend Charlie. He enjoyed it, a lot more than I thought he would. So I wondered if there were any G&S fans out there.

Also, anyone out there who lives in or has lived in Pittsburg, Kansas? Inquiring minds would like to know.

x

I wrote a few plays since 2002:

Go North, young Tiberius: drama (2002)
Tiberius has not seen his parents since his birth. While watching the news, he sees what he thinks is his lost father. He must travel North to meet him.

Son of the President: action/drama (2002)
A young Mexican street boy finds out his father is the President of the United States.

Summer: Romance/drama (2003)
It's Summer time and nothing could get better once young Timmy Smith meets a girl named Summer.

911: the Musical (never preformed,the school didn't let me)
A musical about September 11.

The Birthday Party: comedy (2004)
A little boy doesn't know what to give his father for his birthday.

Baseball, the national passtime (2005)
(It was going to be a short film but everything got mixed up) A baseball play.

Coconut Groove: A Musical (2006)
A musical sung by some construction workers building a community called Coconut Groove.

Oh,short films? I tried to do some:

In 6th grade I wrote a 45 page script for a short film called "The Genius" and got a bunch of students but sometimes we lost the camera, people quitted and we stopped the production...

Later in 6th grade we succesfully filmed a short film called "The Olympian" about a boy who had to win a school PE race to recieve respect from the other students, the girl of his dreams and an A+ in general. It runs for 40 minutes,

In summer before 7th grade, we filmed our second short film named "The Bad Grade" about a kid who has to steal some test answers to be able to get through 7th grade which was a good lesson about studying in 7th for us.

Right now I am writing a mini series called Shark Tails involving marionettes and string in a fish tank.

Interesting. Certainly your experiences in short filmmaking remind me of mine. As for your plays, they all sound very interesting...especially the 9/11 musical. Just from the outline, it would seem to come dangerously close to bad taste, but I couldn't say...certainly it would be a good subject for an operatic treatment.

Interesting. Certainly your experiences in short filmmaking remind me of mine. As for your plays, they all sound very interesting...especially the 9/11 musical. Just from the outline, it would seem to come dangerously close to bad taste, but I couldn't say...certainly it would be a good subject for an operatic treatment.

thanks, how would you like to help me write a play?

I am currently writing a short film called Camelio's Rage about a guy called Camelio looking for his lost daughter, he must kill people from a list of 6 suspects

thanks, how would you like to help me write a play?

I am currently writing a short film called Camelio's Rage about a guy called Camelio looking for his lost daughter, he must kill people from a list of 6 suspects

Thanks for the offer, johnandjanice, but I must, at least for the time being, decline. If you live in Florida, as your profile states, then I live about 1,400 miles away from you. Also, I have not had especially good experiences with collaborative writing (though I have not tried it recently). I find that writing, at least the initial conception, is very much a personal effort, and that the aims of the multiple creators would conflict and produce a work of low quality. But I wish you luck with Camelio's Rage, and I suggest that you consider allowing the work to grow, perhaps to more feature-length; I've never worked from a story like this, but if I were to start with this idea, I would probably allow it a good 100 minutes. But that's just me.

Me & my brother are working on a film script (a film that we will direct ourselfs so it's going to look crap) about two brothers who where abused as kids so they grew up rough they became outcast geting into fights at school but find love .... thoe its with the same girl so it kind of chalenges them


we were talking about this a week ago & got the first page done after we get more into it I will give a better descripton about it

You could try it as a play, too. There, you don't have to worry about crappy lighting or dead camera batteries.

x

Any more news out there, yo? I'm still waitin' to hear from y'all!

Rizzlety-write something!

I request some input from those of you out thee so that I can continue to inflate my ego.

ook

Well, I've considered/done some prewriting on a couple of short films, one movie, and a couple of plays/musicals, but I've lost intrest before even finishing the pre-writing phase.

Though I am currently doing prewriting on a novel type thing, which I plan on completing sometime in late 2007/early 2008 (its dealing with current events, so I can only write what has already happened. I think that when completed it could very easily become a movie.

If anyone is interested, its a story dealing with my life. Its basically a memoir, but I'm writing it while its happening, and I'm not involving my family life a LOT, its more like all of the drama going on with all of my friends and me. Thats one reason I've been keeping a blog, and also doing other stuff to keep records of these events that are as detailed as possible. I'm hoping to start it with a really significant event in my life (my breakup being a possibility, though I'm actually considering taking it another way and hugely incorporating MSN into the book, and if I did that then I would start it with me creating my new MSN address, but I ramble...) and end it with a really significant event *hopes something happens so I don't have to end it with like...the end of the school year or some cliche like that*. And It's going to be written like fiction, even though about 99% of the events will be true.

Very interesting. Let me know if you write it. I myself never did "prewriting"; I think my plays out in my head and then write.

Well, I guess thats what I mean by prewriting. I have it all set up in my head, the plays/movies I just never got around to writing down. But with this book I'll need my research materials (blog, MSN convo's, etc...).

I plan on going into more of an acting career, but have meddled with writing. Up until I joined my drama class I planned on being a playwright. For the longest time I've only had a few comedic skits, but I'm now focusing on plays. My teacher has asked me to attempt a play for next year so I'm going to get busy, lol

excellent