On The DL

Philadelphia Young Playwrights

by Mark Cofta

Runs Feb. 28-March 1, $12-$15 (free for school groups), Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 S. Broad St., 215-985-0420, phillyyoungplaywrights.org

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Throughout the Philadelphia Young Playwrights' 20 years, students have written plays about subjects ranging from bed-wetting and nightmares to divorce and cancer. Some of the organization's most powerful work, however, has explored the everyday violence Philly kids experience in school. In collaboration with the Philadelphia Theatre Co. and Temple University's theater department, PYP presents fully staged professional productions of two significant student plays to help launch "40 Days of Nonviolence," a national initiative that was launched on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Charles Dumas, whose powerful staging of Rita Dove's The Darker Face of the Earth just finished a successful run at Temple, directs Marquis Herring's The Choices We Make and Nia Davis' Poetic Life (previously performed by Ashley Adams, pictured), with assistance from choreographer Myra Bazell. Herring, who wrote his autobiographical play as a senior at Parkway Northwest High School, examines the choice between revenge and nonviolence that his central character confronts when his brother is shot and killed. Davis also dramatizes life experience in her story of a poetry club dealing with violence between female gangs, written when she was a junior at Northeast High School. The playwrights, now freshman college students at Lock Haven University (Herring) and Temple (Davis), will debut a collaboratively written poem that links their plays in the production, which includes a post-show interactive discussion about conflict resolution.