Young theater audiences to experience ‘Star Stuff’

During her interview on our Arts Alive! podcast earlier this year, ThinkTank Theatre founder and artistic director Georgia Mallory Guy was to-the-point specific about the national Theatre For Young Audiences (TYA) movement. It’s not fairy tales, Uncle Waldo or Barney the big purple dinosaur, any more than it’s Hamlet or Death of a Salesman or Angels in America.

TYA, Guy explained, is the “middle meat” in the great theatrical sandwich.

“If theater is a direct reflection of our lives and our community,” she explained, “then you’re missing a whole huge demographic of people – that means children, middle schoolers, high schoolers, their parents, their families, early college kids … it’s work that is meant to be done that reflects them. Because then they grasp the greater understanding of theater as a reflective mirror of society.”

The idea behind TYA is theater that speaks to young people.

ThinkTank is back in action this weekend, at the Stageworks theater in Tampa’s Channelside District, with a production of the drama Star Stuff by Kimberlee Stone.

The Nebraska-based playwright submitted the one-act, 65-minute play in 2022, as part of ThinkTank’s second annual TYA Playwrights Festival. It was produced a year ago in a readers’ theater version, and now, it’s getting the full production as the headline act in the ’23 Playwrights Festival.

Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

“It’s sort of a magical realism play,” Guy tells us. “About two 13-year-old best friends, and one of them hears a ‘calling.’ The further she investigates it, she finds out she is actually a star. The stars are calling to her to become part of the universe, essentially. To leave earth and become physical star matter.

“It’s explained a bit more beautifully in the play.

“But what happens then is her best friend becomes very jealous that she does not feel special. So as Lola is becoming her own, and moving through this passage and learning a little bit more about herself and becoming a star, Sofia becomes jealous. But as they navigate through the play, Sofia begins to understand what her place is, as well. And understands where her talents lie, and what’s special about her.”

Yep, there’s a life lesson in there, for everybody. It’s about that moment when we discover that we are our own star, says Guy, “whether that be the star in a performance, or the person that’s getting the attention and the focus. And many times, that’s not us. But when it is our time, being grateful for your opportunity. And being celebratory for when it’s someone else’s opportunity.

“Because you never know when someone is looking at you, wishing they had what you had. We all do it. It’s human nature, right?”

Although ThinkTank productions are typically performed with a combination of professional adult actors and members of the group’s Young Actor Ensemble, the cast of Star Stuff consists entirely of young performers. It’s always about getting the message across.

“We don’t typically put our young artists in roles that carry shows, because they’re just not written that way,” explains Guy. “But these Playwrights Festival shows do. And so it’s a really good opportunity for us to showcase our young artists.”

The actors are Adeline Richardson, Kaylee Tupper Miller, Katie Calahan, Jessie Dorsey, Landon Green, Emma Hundley, Jadon Milne and Sofia Pickford.

(Next up on the ThinkTank schedule, in late September,  is a production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, in collaboration with the Tampa Repertory Theatre. This will feature a cast of young ensemble members and seasoned professionals.)

The weekend’s Playwrights Festival also includes staged readings of the two runners-up for 2023, Her Beautiful Sound (Saturday) and The Amphibians (Sunday). More than 470 submissions were received. One of these plays will get the full-production treatment next year.

Three 10-minute plays from local teen playwrights will be given back-to-back staged readings in Gen Next Writes, Sunday. The young playwrights are Samantha Bollinger, Oliver Kokai-Means and Alexander Pedro-Lopez.

Tickets for Star Stuff are here. Admission to the other, staged-reading productions is free (reserve tickets here.)