Young Playwrights for Change 2020: Emily Ge and Shared Ignorance

Encouraging Social Change through Youth Playwriting 

Young Playwrights for Change (YPC) is a national middle school playwriting competition, run by the American Alliance for Theatre and Education (AATE). The mission of Young Playwrights for Change is to produce meaningful conversations that will ripple across our nation to provoke change. The goal is to spark conversation and discussion throughout classrooms, schools, and communities. Through the Incubator for Creative Impact, Creative Generation has partnered with AATE to expand the reach of the competition, reimagine the learning opportunities for young playwrights who focus on issues of social change, and share the winning and top-tier plays to new audiences within and without the theatre education community.

YPC 2020 Runner-Up: Shared Ignorance

At the 2020 AATE National Conference, the two winners’ YPC plays were announced, and virtual performances were presented with actors bringing the texts to life. I had a chance to catch up with this year’s Runner-Up Emily Ge about her experience creating her play, Shared Ignorance. The theme for this year’s YPC Program was Take A Stand, encouraging young people to share their stories and perspectives on how they use their voices to change the status quo.

 

Spotlight: Emily Ge, Playwright

Jordan: Hi Emily! Congratulations on your play being selected for the 2020 AATE National Conference. Tell me about the process of writing Shared Ignorance? Describe your inspiration and creative process.

 

Emily: I wanted to write a play that would expose people to the dangers of fervor and believing that you are 100% right. In no way am I saying that passion/ardor for issues you believe in should be discouraged, or even that peace would be in our best interests. I accept that conflict is and should be a part of the modern world, as well as the fact that everyone has their own biases. My play instead warns against the danger of fighting for fighting's sake (at least that's what I wanted the core theme to be). 

This idea was semi-purloined from Frank Herbert's Dune trilogy, which warned against the charismatic leader ("messiah") and the fervor of a population that believes they are right (they believed that their messiah was the ultimate religious leader, and ended up killing 60 billion people when they were spreading their religion). From this came my play, which I turned into a story of conflict. I do realize it's very "on the nose", and that real people would never behave that way, but I could still see parts of our world in the fundamental elements. 

The writing process of this play was fairly simple. The hardest part was getting started (as I'm sure many people will tell you), and creating the characters. I found that writing this was a more personal process because I was only expressing myself through the characters. I couldn't have done it without the help from Children's Theater of Madison and Broadway Virtual, who both helped refine it into something that was semi-readable. 

 

Jordan: Why do you think it is important for young people to get involved?

 

Emily: Young people, like everyone, provide a unique perspective on the world. A lot of the young people I meet are visionaries, with an ultimate utopia for us where everyone can finally be happy. They are the dreamers of the world, imagining a brighter, and hopefully achievable, tomorrow. They give us our humanity, the goals which we set to improve our future. 

The flip side of it is that we, of course, do have sometimes lofty or superficial goals for the world, and are perhaps vulnerable to people who offer a glittering new reality "if only you support these key issues.” The world in our eyes is frequently a hero's tale, and sometimes the only reason we consider the hero to be the hero instead of the villain is that they are charismatic, or passionate, or even just because we heard their side of the story first. I often find myself defending a lot of topics just because my parents told me what was "right" when I was younger. 

 

Jordan: In your opinion, how are theater and storytelling useful in creating change? 

 

Emily: I think that theater and storytelling provide a very accessible way to change the world. It is also very relatable, since the characters are literally popping from the page. It brings the themes into the real world, acted by people who we can all imagine are real people. 

 

Jordan: What was it like to see and hear your play with actors speaking and acting aloud? 

 

Emily: Hearing my play being performed by actors was definitely a valuable experience. It really showed me the vulnerable parts of my play, the dialogues that sometimes didn't sound quite right, whimsical effects that weren't quite so charming off the paper. It was also incredibly enjoyable to see the actors and directors add to my play, turning it into a collaborative piece that went way beyond the words written on the page.

 

Jordan: What are your future plans with theater, playwriting, and/or social justice? 

 

Emily: For now, I'm going to focus on high school. Perhaps read a few plays (Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett is one that I might give a spin). I've never been much of a writer, more a reader, but I remain very interested in the format of plays and how they are able to produce lifelike and complicated characters only through the use of dialogue. 

As for social justice, I'm going to focus on changing myself first, making sure how I act lines up with what I say, before I pass on my views to other people. I will try to look forward to listening to other opinions that are at odds with my own, and keep an open mind to all the different beliefs in the world. 

I understand that everything that I said in this interview could be completely wrong someday, and that I am just a child who sits at home all day and wrote a play that grossly exaggerated a reality that I see from the safety of my tower. I hope to someday be able to comprehend at least a tiny sliver of the multifaceted diamond that is reality, but until then, I'll keep learning, keep changing, and keep enjoying life for what it is.

Jordan: Thank you so much, Emily. Your work is challenging and provokes us to think about how we view the world in relation to others. We can’t wait to see what is next for you! 

In our next Young Playwrights for Change Spotlight, we will hear from this year’s YPC Winner, Lauryn Bonds. 

Emily Ge

Runner-Up, 2020 Young Playwrights for Change, AATE National Conference

Emily Ge is from Madison, Wisconsin, and lives with her parents and two rabbits. She is a part of her school's Forensics club, and has also done other oratorical contests in the past. She enjoys reading, and her favorite genres are sci-fi and fantasy. In her free time, Emily also plays piano and takes her rabbits on walks. Her plans for the future are foggy, but she hopes to do something related to programming or web design.