Cheltenham Creative Works Performed at New Voices Series

Recent grad Ronan Purcell ‘25 and CHS freshman Marielle Miller had their original works performed at Temple University recently as part of the Philadelphia Young Playwrights’ New Voices Series. 

Purcell’s work, written in CHS teacher Molly Lazer’s Creative Writing class last year, is the satirical comedy “The Painting Game,” in which one man struggles with his purpose as an artist in the extravagant and cutthroat world of art. 

“Seeing my play performed was the absolute highlight of my year,” said Purcell, who is a student at Drexel University, enrolled in the College of Arts and Sciences. “What was most interesting was seeing how the actors and director took what I wrote and evolved upon it. Seeing little moments of character and humor emerge between the written lines was incredible.” 

Miller wrote the monologue “Death’s Door” during the spring of her eighth grade year. For “Death’s Door,” Miller was inspired by seeing people in the media censoring words like “death,” “murder” and “suicide” in their posts. “At the time I was also fascinated by mental instability and the concept of the fourth wall,” she said. “I basically took everything I just mentioned and wrote it into a character, then had her say what she was thinking.”

This year, New Voices featured nine pieces written by students from eight schools in the Greater Philadelphia area. The selected pieces were chosen from more than 630 submissions from 30 schools as part of Philadelphia Young Playwrights` Annual Playwriting Festival. 

Each year, Philadelphia Young Playwrights invites students to submit their plays and monologues to the annual playwriting festival. Plays are considered by the Literary Committee—a collection of nearly 70 program alumni, artists, staff, teachers, and others—who read and write individualized responses to every play. Literary Committee members recommend a number of outstanding plays to be considered for further consideration by two additional groups of readers, Pre-Final Committee and Final Committee. At Final Committee, the panel selects plays and monologues for opportunities such as public productions, one-on-one mentorship, and one-day playwriting retreats. Students whose pieces are selected for production are invited to continue to revise and develop their plays in partnership with theater professionals as part of the rehearsal and performance process.