Upon A Sea of Dreams: A Journey on the Titanic

Welcome to "Playwright Spotlight" — your exclusive backstage pass to the creative minds crafting the incredible plays featured in our Theatrefolk catalogue. Discover the magic, quirks, and genius of the playwrights who help bring the stage to life. Let's meet one of these exceptional playwrights who offers the chance for your student performers to shine in their spotlight. What inspired you to start writing plays specifically for high school & middle school students?I taught playwriting to middle through high school students for many years at an arts magnet school and with several theatre companies. I also wrote plays on topics of science and biodiversity that toured to K-12 students throughout western Pennsylvania. I've spent a lot of time with this age group. They have their own stories to tell and their own particular interests. I like working with them. Can you share a bit about your creative process when developing plays that resonate with students?For me, an idea has to resonate within myself first. If it's not important to me, how can it be important to anyone else, no matter their age? I also write fiction, so when an idea comes to me for any story, it generally comes with a sense of who the audience is and the genre -- those are both essential parts of any story. Then, I have to do the work to shape it accordingly. Writing for a younger audience means I have to be a partner with them and be able to go along for the ride in the same way they will, understanding their concerns, language, environments, influences, etc. And, I have to say, it's still very easy for me to feel like a kid. Are there any challenges you face when writing for student performers, and how do you overcome them?I always have to be careful about the complexity of my language. I love Shakespeare, I love Dickens, I studied Latin for five years. I can tolerate a level of complexity that a younger person may struggle with. BUT I also want to be playful with language even when working towards crafting dialogue that rings true. What themes or messages do you aim to convey through your plays?I have the goal for everything that I write these days for it to instill the importance of caring and community. No matter if comedy, drama, parody, realism, historical, contemporary -- it all comes down to what we're making of this world and hoping that that is a caring community for one and all. How do you balance education and fun in your scripts?For me, education is fun! Can you share a memorable experience or feedback from a student performance that left an impact on you?I have SOOOO many from our annual one-act festival of student-written plays and student performances (mentioned below). One that stands out is a play about a young teen coming out to his parents as gay. We produced that play at our middle school and the student audience was, at first, a bit tentative and uncomfortable with the situation. But by the end, they really cared for and understood the character, and were rooting for him. You could feel the wave of emotion running through the theatre. It was amazing. A very powerful experience for us all. Any advice for teachers or directors looking to choose engaging and age-appropriate plays for their student performers?As a middle-school creative writing teacher for many years, I struggled finding age appropriate plays! That's probably why I wrote some. I think you have to like the play yourself before you can teach or direct it, so I just had to explore. I started a play-reading group where we'd read a play out loud in a group. That was a fun way to get to know more plays. My students also wrote their own plays and they wrote some pretty darn good ones. We had an annual one-act festival where we produced some plays along with scene work from each student. That was thrilling. What is your favourite play you've written so far?I've had a lot of plays produced, but only one play published so far: Upon a Sea of Dreams: A Journey on the Titanic, which I wrote for my students and which is very near to my heart. My favorite produced but unpublished play is a little ditty called "Lucky Day." It's set in a world where every single life activity is accompanied by the chance to win a billion dollars. Silly but prescient. Anything else you'd like students and/or directors to know about you as a playwright?I don't think I could have been a playwright without having first been an actor, costumer, prop mistress, stage manage, director, usher -- all those things that gave me the language of theatre. Thank goodness for the opportunities I had as a shy kid to get to work on plays.

March 8th is International Women’s Day – and what better time to highlight some amazing women within the Theatrefolk community. Join us in celebrating these phenomenal playwrights and authors and their incredible contributions to the world of student theatre. Plus, keep reading to see our Top 10 Plays for Female Casts at the end of the post! Rachel Atkins • Baalzebub (and One Act Version)

Time for a Tfolk Top Plays List For….Building a Theatre Program. You’ve had a large group of seniors graduate. You’re starting at a new school that doesn’t have a theatre program You’re taking over a program that needs some serious love. What plays should you choose to build your program? Click the link and you’ll be taken to the webpage for each play. There you’ll get the details and read sample pages. All the best with your search – and with building your program! Choose a play with a familiar link that people know. Use the familiar as your hook.

Are you ready for an intimate, human take on a massive, epic event? Upon a Sea of Dreams: A Journey on the Titanic by Kathleen Donnelly is an amazing character-based drama with a unique look at this infamous event. It is the night of April 14, 1912. In a tiny third class cabin Emma struggles to quiet her infant brother and calm her younger sisters. The young girls think life on the Titanic is a game. They’re on their way to a new life in America after all. But the playful air changes when the ship suddenly stops moving and sirens blast. The stewardess says they’re to stay in their cabins. The American boy says his deck is flooded and the ship is sinking. They have to get out now. Do the girls stay put or leave? And if they leave, how do they get past the locked gate? The students at Nashoba Valley Technical High School in Westford, MA took their vision of this extraordinary play on an award-winning journey at the Massachusetts Educational Theatre Guild High School Theatre Festival. Under the direction of Emily Smith , this talented group won individual acting awards for three cast members*, along with the Stage Manager’s Award. Performing cast: Emma: Olivia Spoth* Milly: Katie Wiitala* Sarah: Shea Kenny Matt: Brian McCall Stewardess: Rachel Cieslik*

Time for a Tfolk Top Ten Plays To….Stretch your tech. ** We pride ourselves at Theatrefolk that you can produce most of our plays with two cubes. And you could take away one of the cubes if you had to. But what if you want to stretch your tech? What if you’ve got a production class with kids who must design for more than two cubes? Wonder no longer. **Here are 10 plays that will Stretch your Tech. Click the link and you’ll be taken to the webpage for each play. There you’ll get the details and read sample pages. Hand this list over to your student directors and see what they think. All the best with your search!

Welcome to our Featured Play Spotlight. You know about the Titanic, but you won’t want to miss Upon A Sea of Dreams: A Journey on the Titanic – an amazing character-based drama by Kathleen Donnelly with a unique look at this infamous event. It is the night of April 14, 1912. In a tiny third class cabin Emma struggles to quiet her infant brother and calm her younger sisters. The young girls think life on the Titanic is a game. They’re on their way to a new life in America after all. But the playful air changes when the ship suddenly stops moving and sirens blast. The stewardess says they’re to stay in their cabins. The American boy says his deck is flooded and the ship is sinking. They have to get out now. Do the girls stay put or leave? And if they leave, how do they get past the locked gate? Why did we publish this play? If you don’t know the date, you know the event. On April 14, 1912 the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank into the frigid waters of the Atlantic. Upon a Sea of Dreams dramatizes this historical event by bringing to life a family in a tiny third class cabin. I love a cross-curricular play that doesn’t come across as a history lesson. The characters come first in Upon a Sea of Dreams. You connect to their story, their dreams and you want to know they’re going to make it past the locked gates and get out alive. Will they? You’ll have to read the play to find out! Let’s hear from the author! 1. Why did you write this play? I teach creative writing at a creative and performing arts school. I was working with a 6th grade playwriting class, and I wanted to demonstrate that you can write a play about anything, set anywhere. We’d done a brainstorming activity on the chalkboard, listing big moments in history, and somebody had written “The Titanic.” I randomly grabbed that topic and started to brainstorm how you could tailor a play set on a huge ship to fit a small theatre space. That night, I wrote an opening scene to share with the students as a model. We all enjoyed it so much, that I just continued writing the story. I don’t think I finished the script before that course ended, but I definitely had embraced the project by then. I enjoyed every minute of researching the story, from the Titanic itself (I found Titanic’s cabin charts online and pinpointed a third-class cabin tucked away next to a stairwell that is, in my mind, where the play takes place), to exploring Irish culture to get a stronger hold on the family’s background. There were times after working on the script, that I felt like I’d spent the day out at sea on the North Atlantic — not a bad getaway without ever leaving Pittsburgh! 2. Describe the theme in one or two sentences. I didn’t focus much on theme while writing this play, but now that the story’s down on paper, it seems to me that acts of sacrifice come up throughout the play that show how, ultimately, they are the greatest acts of love. 3. What’s the most important visual for you in this play? Visually, if you’re talking staging and set, I think it’s creating that small, tight space of the cabin. Dramatically, it’s that moment of Emma all by herself in the cabin. 4. If you could give one piece of advice for those producing the play, what would it be? While it would be very fun to recreate for the stage a (mostly) authentic rendering of a third-class cabin, I think that you could get away with a very minimalistic set for this show. Costuming and sound design could carry the weight of creating the atmosphere of the ship and the event. And, do the accents. I think some of the dialogue could be a bit unwieldy without the rhythm of the Irish speech patterns. 5. Why is this play great for student performers? Why is it great for student performers? Let me count the ways: • I think the play offers challenging character work for young actors. These sisters know each other as intimately as sisters do — to realize these characters asks for fully present and honest acting that fills in all the moments between the lines, too. The role of the stewardess is a most challenging role for a young actor to inhabit the shoes and regrets of someone much older. • The chance to do some strong vocal work through capturing the Irish dialects. • The story of The Titanic seems to fascinate each new generation. It is a timeless story that students love, and yet… • it’s a fantastic way to connect the arts and academics, through learning about this pivotal time in American history and the story of immigrants coming to America in the early 1900s. • It continues to be a great model for students to see how a stage play can take you anywhere and to any event.

Time for a Tfolk Top Ten Plays About…Dramas. Issue plays that don’t talk down to your students. Theatrical explorations of serious topics. Read one, read them all! Click the link and you’ll be taken to the webpage for each play. There you’ll get the details and read sample pages. All the best with your search! Look Me In the Eye Teenagers in the future are obedient, polite, and respectful. Everything about their life is black and white, right or wrong. This is due in large part to the government-required “Observation Sessions.” But there is a dark underside to this utopian vision. Sometimes life is grey. Chemo Girl A collection that examines the impact of cancer through the eyes of teenagers. Characters deal with the difficulty of saying the word out loud, the difficulty of admitting a friend or family member has cancer, and the difficulty of finding the energy and the attitude needed to fight. Chicken. Road. Why did the chicken cross the road? Why is the sky blue? What’s two plus two? Why did he kill himself? A group of teenagers grapple with unanswered questions as they struggle to understand why someone who seemed to have it all would commit suicide. Have You Heard Everybody knows a secret. Some keep them quiet. Some let them loose. This monologue-based play follows what happens in a school when rumours and secrets spin out of control. What makes a secret more powerful: When it’s the truth? Or when it’s a lie? Upon a Sea of Dreams: A Journey on the Titanic An amazing character-based drama with a unique look at this infamous event. In a tiny third class cabin sisters plan for a new life in America. Suddenly the ship stops moving and sirens blast. The girls are told to stay in their cabin. Another passenger says the ship is sinking. The Waking Moment Julie would do anything to be just like her best friend Rhonda. She gets her wish when she wakes up one morning in Rhonda’s bed – but nobody seems to notice. Julie quickly realizes that Rhonda’s perfect world is actually a nightmare. Deals with sexual abuse. Anonymous We all have our stories. “New and old, complete and untold.” Anonymous is a story of every teenager: the new kid trying to fit in, the best friends, the love interests, the kid in the corner with their secret, the group of individuals each trying to belong. The teenagers of Anonymous have no names because they are “Me” and “You.” They are everyone. Discovering Rogue Rogue has the best beachfront property – right on the ocean. Her home is a cardboard box but she doesn’t mind. Others, though, mind very much. They want Rogue to leave the beach. Now. But Rogue isn’t just running away from home; she’s running away from herself. Breathless – Three girls named Summer. Three races of discovery. Will they crash or fly? A beautiful character piece with strong female leads. Clowns With Guns (A Vaudeville) – A theatrical and absurd look at the repeated and seemingly endless cycle of school violence. This story is mean. There are guns. BONUS! NEW DramaThe Blue and the Grey – Charlie is surrounded by ghosts: her father, a classmate’s sister, and the grey. Haunting, exhilarating, theatrical. Planning on performing one of these or another Theatrefolk play? Let us know all about it with pictures and highlights – we might even feature you on our site! Click here to submit your story.