N.B. student playwrights take their stories from the page to stage

New Brunswick high school students flexed their playwrighting skills at a drama festival.

From the page to the stage, New Brunswick high school students are putting their stories in the spotlight and becoming playwrights.

Of the 40 plays presented recently at the province’s high school drama festival, 15 were original productions – a number that has grown substantially over the years.

Hampton High School students Adeline Oegema and Katie Hoyt co-wrote “Narrative of a Monarch,” while also serving as the production’s directors. Seeing productions from student playwrights at previous drama festivals encouraged Oegema and Hoyt to try it themselves.

“I do a lot of writing outside of this, so I was aware of what it was going to take to write it,” says Oegema, with Hoyt quickly adding, “I was not.”

The script tells the story of a reluctant queen trying to solve the murder of her brother, the former king. Oegema and Hoyt ramped up their script writing efforts at the beginning of September.

“We knew how we wanted it to start and where we wanted to go,” says Hoyt. “We just had to figure out how to get there.”

Ilkay Silk, a Canadian theatre legend and longtime adjudicator at the festival, says the dramatic increase in student playwrights has been encouraging to see.

“You get into their heads and it’s really interesting with what they come up with,” says Silk. “I think what’s happened is that there’s a real interest in writing.

“Somehow they’ve been given permission to write their own stories. And I think this festival has done that.”

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