Nearly Famous in New Jersey

At 17-years-old, Randolph High School Senior Emma Baxter has already won numerous playwriting awards and had her plays produced by professional theatres in three states, but now she’s bringing her latest play, “Nearly Famous,” back home to Morris County. A New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival winner in 2012, Baxter has continuously turned out new works since she was 12-years-old, often writing more than three plays a year. This past Fall, she was selected to be a Fellow in Philadelphia Young Playwrights’ Paula Vogel Mentors Program - the first year out-of-state playwrights were included - and was awarded the Sam Mortorelli Literature Award in Playwriting by the National Society of Arts & Letters in June of this year. On July 16th, Writers Theatre of New Jersey, in partnership with Philadelphia Young Playwrights and The Found Theatre Company, will bring “Nearly Famous” to the Roxbury Performing Arts Center in Succasunna to give New Jersey audiences the opportunity to see this young playwright’s latest play.

Directed by Jay Gilman and featuring the actors from The Found Theatre Company - Emily R. Johnson, Joe Wozniak, and Joe Palinsky--Nearly Famous deals with notions of how young creative people can be exploited in their quest to find legitimate outlets for their art. The play was developed with mentor Jacqueline Goldfinger, and subsequently workshopped with The Found Theatre who presented the play in May of this year. The July 16 performance is a re-mounting of that production. A recounting of her experience developing Nearly Famous can be found on WTNJ’s blog pages athttps://www.wtnj.org/the-paula-vogel-mentors-project-my-experience/ .

A resident of Randolph, and a rising-Senior at Randolph High School, Baxter has taken every dramatic writing opportunity offered to her, both in the classes she’s chosen to take at school and in extra-curricular classes, like Summer playwriting classes with Writers Theatre. Emma has also started experimenting with screenwriting, having turned multiple plays into films. One script that won honorable mention in the New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival two years ago is now an almost hour-long film, which she shot, edited, and directed with the help of some friends serving as actors! Her films are available to the public on her YouTube channel.

Emma will be participating in a New York University Tisch School of the Arts playwriting program this summer, and plans on pursuing a playwriting degree in college in the Fall of 2017.

“Emma’s work has been an important part of the Writers Theatre community for a number of years,” said Writers Theatre Artistic Director, John Pietrowski. “When we saw the opportunity to bring a fully realized production to that community, we could not let it pass. We are grateful to the Philadelphia Young Playwrights Program and Found Theatre for providing the production.”

“Nearly Famous,” will be presented as a fully realized workshop production featuring professional actors on Saturday, July 16 at 7 PM. at the Roxbury Performing Arts Center, in the Investors Bank Theatre at 72 Eyland Ave., Succasunna, New Jersey. Admission is free with a $10 recommended donation and can be ordered via the Writers Theatre of New Jersey website at http://www.wtnj.org/nearly-famous/

For more information on any of Writers Theatre’s programs, please visit www.wtnj.org, or contact Writers Theatre at P.O. Box 1295, Madison, NJ, 07940, 973-514-1787 x20 or info@ptnj.org.

For more information on The Philadelphia Young Playwrights Program: http://www.phillyyoungplaywrights.org/

For more information on The Found Theater: http://www.foundtheatercompany.com/