Today on the DCPA NewsCenter, we continue our daily countdown of the 10 Colorado student playwrights who have been named semifinalists for our fifth annual statewide playwriting competition. On Wednesday, Jan. 17, we will announce the writers whose plays will be read at the 2018 Colorado New Play Summit. (Details below.)

SCENESTER NO. 9: CALLISTA ZARONIAS

• Class: Senior
• School: Peak to Peak Charter School, Lafayette
• Teacher: Kristie Letter
• Your play title: Invisible Scars
• What is your play about? It’s about a woman who has been sexually abused and struggles with what it means in her current life. It shows the internal conflict with her conscience as she fights to come to terms with the abuse.
• What was your inspiration for writing your play? Sexual abuse is a tragic event and a much too common issue in today’s society. Many women are now voicing their stories of sexual abuse in the media. These women inspired me to help bring even more attention to sexual abuse. No one deserves to be abused, and no one should feel the need to keep quiet about it. Everyone deserves a voice, and I hope that my play can help others find their voice, too.
  
• Favorite word that appears in your script: Naive.
• Killer casting: I would cast Jennifer Lawrence as Nicole’s Conscience because of her spunky humor, and her real and gritty personality.
• What did you learn from writing this play? That creative expression can come in many different forms. I also learned that words can have different meaning when they’re written versus when they are said, and that difference can make plays uniquely powerful.

Video: Winning DCPA student playwrights’ plays are performed

About the 2017-18 Regional High-School Playwriting Workshop and Competition:

What: A one-act playwriting competition designed for area high schools. Local playwrights and DCPA Education faculty taught 146 playwriting workshops in 57 Colorado schools. A record 3,002 high-school students participated in those workshops, which were held in every school district in the Denver-metro area and in 20 counties around the state.

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 153 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 2018 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 2018.

Sponsors: Robert and Judi Newman Family Foundation with matching gifts from The Ross Foundation, June Travis and Transamerica.

Our profiles of all 2018 Scenester semifinalists:

• Arianna Josue, Lakewood High School
• Ashley Wright (home school) and Amelia Middlebrooks, Valor Christian High School
• Joshua Martelon, Eliza Keating and Cameron Barnard, Cherry Creek High School
• Katanu Mwendwa, DSST: Conservatory Green High School
• Gemma Vincent, Gunnison High School
• Micah James Wilborn, Air Academy High School
• Julianna Luce and Trinell Samuel, Vista Peak Prep
• Noah Jackson, Girls Athletic Leadership School
• Callista Zaronias, Peak to Peak Charter School
• Emmaleth Ryan, Grandview High School

Video bonus: Last year’s playwrights at the Colorado New Play Summit

Video: We talked with the four 2017 student playwriting finalists whose plays were read by DCPA actors at the Colorado New Play Summit. Video by David Lenk and John Moore for the DCPA NewsCenter. 

More Colorado theatre coverage on the DCPA NewsCenter