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. 10: EMMALETH RYAN

• Class: Senior
• School: Grandview High School
• Teacher: Brianna Lindahl
• Your play title: Sleep No More
• What is your play about? A girl is fighting demons both within and without herself, and she decides to end the battle by committing suicide. However, her course is interrupted by another young woman who reminds her of the resilience of the human spirit.
• What was your inspiration for writing your play? I was inspired by the sudden influx of suicide-related media that I felt misrepresented or glorified depression and suicide (namely the TV show 13 Reasons Why and the song 1-800-273-8255 by Logic.) I’ve struggled with depression and I know many people who have fought against bullying, depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. This play was written as an attempt to honor, but not glorify, that struggle. The title of my play was taken from a line in Macbeth: “Sleep no more, Macbeth does murder sleep.” This reference was a vague parallel between Macbeth, who becomes a tyrannical king, and the tyrant of my play, as they both ruin the peace of the innocent.
• 

  Yara Shahidi

  Favorite word that appears in your script: Visceral.

• Killer casting: If I had any kind of influence, my first choice for playing the Princess would be Yara Shahidi. She is a known social activist, and I’m endlessly impressed by the way she uses her intelligence and popularity to promote social justice in spite of her youth. She is the type of person I hoped to exemplify when writing the Princess. Additionally, she seems like a wonderful person to work with, and she’s gorgeous.
• What did you learn from writing this play? Writing this play brought me a great deal of peace. I spent a long time in the mindset of the Warrior, who is intelligent and spirited but sunk too deep in her misery to truly see reality as it is. Her role wasn’t difficult to write. Writing the Princess was far more challenging, as she is meant to be the inspiring antagonist to the Warrior’s suicidal thoughts. In the play, she has been kicked around by the world, but her response was not to hide but to fight back. This response was enlightening to me, and I learned more about how to grapple with life by writing a character who has fought her demons and won.

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 (to date):

• 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
• Today: Emmaleth Ryan, Grandview High School

A look back: Our profiles of all 10 of the 2017 semifinalists:

• Parker Bennett, Fossil Ridge High School
• Corinna Donovan and Walker Carroll, Crested Butte Community School
• Jasmin A. Hernandez Lozano, Vista Peak Prep High School
• Ryan Patrick McCormick, Fort Collins High School
• Abby Meyer and Nic Rhodes, Fossil Ridge High School
• Amelia Middlebrooks, Valor Christian High School
• Samantha Shapard, Overland High School
• Sarah Shapard, Overland High School
• Daniela Villalobo, York International
• Jessica Wood, Denver Christian School

More Colorado theatre coverage on the DCPA NewsCenter