Every year, The Theater Project holds the Young Playwrights Competition. Students aged 13 to 18 from all over the state can enter a 10-20 page original script. Del Val’s own Abigail Drake, a junior, won first place in New Jersey.
Drake submitted “Buried Treasure,” a play she wrote as an English class.
“Buried Treasure started as an assignment for English class,” Drake said. “When we heard about the competition, I was trying to find something to write about. I looked back at what I’d written for an assignment in Contemporary Drama, and I decided to expand upon that story.”
While this may have seemed like an easy way for Drake to enter the competition, it was quite the opposite.
“By the time I heard about the contest, the deadline was only a couple weeks away, so I didn’t have a lot of time,” Drake said.
However, this obstacle didn’t stop Drake.
“I was working on it all day, every day,” Drake said. “During lunch, during water breaks at rehearsal, late at night, on the bus and in the car. I wanted to make sure it was the best I could make it before I turned it in.”
To write to the best of her abilities, Drake had to focus in and get in the right mindset.
“I usually find that my writing mind is the most warmed up at the end of the day,” Drake said. “I also make playlists for characters and stories, and the songs can help set the tone of a scene or help me understand a character’s emotions.”
“Hidden Treasures” is a play that explores themes of friendship and forgiveness.
“The play revolves around two childhood best friends break a long-held grudge and reunite to find a precious object that one of them has lost,” Drake said.
By creating an emotional story that pulls at the heart strings, Drake hopes it’ll inspire the audience.
“I hope the people watching and reading the play will think about an old friend of theirs,” Drake said. “I have a lot of childhood friends who I’ve lost contact with. I feel like everyone has a person from their past that they miss and secretly want to reach out to, and I hope my little story can give someone the push they need to reach out to that person.”
Looking into the future, Drake plans to keep writing.
“Someday, I hope to have plays and possibly even musicals of my own published and performed,” Drake said. My dream would be to write a Broadway musical, but I also want to be able to act on television and Broadway if I can.”
Drake understands firsthand just how difficult playwrighting can be.
She urged fellow writers to look everywhere for story ideas, saying that there are possibilities anywhere.
“It doesn’t matter if other people like it or not,” Drake said. “What matters is that it makes you happy when you read it.”
