Baldwin Students Honored as Philadelphia Young Playwrights

From left: Andrea Coler, Alexa Lenfest and Erica Wachs. (Photos courtesy of The Baldwin School)

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The following was provided to Patch by The Baldwin School:

Eighth graders Andrea Coler and Alexa Lenfest, along with recent Baldwin graduate Erica Wachs ’14, have all placed in the Philadelphia Young Playwrights’ Annual Playwriting Festival. The winners were selected from original play submissions by more than 1,000 student playwrights.

In the Middle School category, Andrea was selected as a Second Place Winner for Home, a touching and heartfelt play about adoption and the challenges faced as children get older and are still seeking a home. The characters must deal with a range of emotions as they struggle with the strong desire to belong somewhere, apprehensions as they adjust to life with their new families, and difficulties as they leave behind other children who have not found homes.

Also in the Middle School Category, Alexa was selected as a Third Place Winner for Borderline, a topical play about illegal immigration centered on the love and sacrifices of a family in times of desperation. The play follows a girl in Panama as she secretly travels to the United States to find work as an undocumented immigrant to help her family raise money for life-saving medication for her sick mother. Both Alexa and Andrea wrote their plays under the direction of drama teacher Lori Reed.

Erica was selected as a Second Place Winner for her play Junk, Or An Evening With Dan Stevens about a young creative writing office intern who has dinner with Dan Stevens of Downton Abbey fame after he leaves his acting career to publish an online magazine, The Junket. Throughout the course of dinner, secrets and insecurities are revealed as they discuss what it means to be a writer. Erica’s play was created under the direction of Cynthia Angst, Performing Arts Chair.

Every year Baldwin teams up with Philadelphia’s Young Playwrights, an art education organization that taps the potential of youth and inspires learning through playwriting to support its mission of every young person having voice worth hearing. Now in its 24th year, the organization offered intensive playwriting workshops for 1,700 students in up to 50 classrooms throughout the region.