Today on Denver CenterStage, we continue our exciting daily countdown of the 10  student playwrights have been named semifinalists for our second annual statewide playwriting competition. (Details below.)

Scenester No. 3: Keely Kritz

School: Denver School of the Arts

Teachers: Eric Mills and Monica Sparks

Play title: Life According to Mauve

What is your play about? Basically it is a glimpse into the diary (and life) of a 17-year-old girl who has a passion for feminism, ’90s hip-hop and the occasional curse word.

Favorite word that appears in your script: “Edamame.” Partly because it’s a killer snack, and partly because it’s super-fun to say in weird voices.

Excerpt: “In this day and age, ‘feminism’ should not be a dirty word. Ya know who’s a feminist? Beyonce. Amy Poelher. Lena Dunham. Miley Cyrus.”

Who or what was your inspiration for writing your play? I took a lot of inspiration from re-reading my own journal. My mom and sister were also the inspirations for Mauve’s family.

Killer casting: Emma Stone. She would be a bit old to play Mauve, but I have no doubt her unbridled spunk would be great for the role.

What did you learn from writing this play? Sometimes your characters end up behaving a lot like you, and that you have to write about something you love. Otherwise, there’s no passion in it. Also: Transitions are hard.

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About the Denver Center’s 2014 Regional Youth Playwriting Workshop and Competition:

What: “Your Story. Our Stage”: A one-act playwriting competition designed for area high schools. Local playwrights and DCPA Education staff members taught 143 playwriting workshops in 45 Colorado high schools. More than 2,899 high-school students participated in those workshops, which were held in every school district in the Denver-metro area and in 13 counties, including Chafee, Larimer and Las Animas.

Why: To nurture Colorado’s young playwrights; develop theatre artists and audiences; develop new plays; and advance literacy, creativity, writing and communication through playwriting.

How: A total of 158 submissions were judged blindly by DCPA artistic, literary and education professionals. Ten semifinalists are being identified through this rolling daily countdown. At the end of the countdown, three winners will be named. They will receive a cash scholarship of $250 each AND a staged reading in the 2014 Colorado New Play Summit next month. In addition, each teacher of the three finalists will receive a $250 gift certificate for books, supplies or other teaching tools for their classrooms. One play also will be presented as a fully staged performance exercise for DCPA Education students in the summer of 2015.

Our complete countdown of 2015 semifinalists (to date):
No. 1: Christina Arias of Kunsmiller Creative Arts Academy
No. 2: Joshua Contreras, Gunnison High School
No. 3: Keely Kritz of Denver School of the Arts
No. 4: Nathan Mast, Thomas B. Doherty High School
No. 5: Kiana Trippler, Thunder Ridge High School
No. 6: Ryan McCormick, Fort Collins High School
No. 7: Kaytlin Camp, Gunnison High School
Bonus: Read about 2014 winning teen playwright Laurain Park

COMING WEDNESDAY: MEET SCENESTER NO. 4!

Video from the teen play readings at the 2014 Colorado New Play Summit