Performance Date - Saturday, June 6, 12pm and 2pm

Dallas College - Richland Campus in the Black Box Theater in Fannin Hall

FREE (RSVP Required)

DALLAS, TX - Junior Players and Kitchen Dog Theater are excited to announce that Playwrights Under Progress (PUP) Fest, the culminating event of their annual partnership with the Dallas Independent School District known as the Dallas Playwriting Arts Collective (D-PAC), will return to the stage this year for its landmark 25th anniversary. Six scripts written by local high school playwrights have been selected for this year’s production and will feature some of the area's top student actors. These plays will be presented as staged readings on Saturday, June 6, at 12 pm and 2 pm at Dallas College - Richland Campus in the Black Box theater in Fannin Hall.

This year’s scripts include, in alphabetical order:

A Heart Found in Code by Hailey Bautista (W.H. Adamson High School),

Fruit Bowl by Makayla Leija & MacKayla Rodriguez (W.T. White High School)

Making Lemonade by Bailey Lusk (Marvin E. Robinson School of Business and Management)

Object Zero: The Receptionist by LeCalvin Wiggins (David W. Carter High School)

Voices by Graham Raney (Judge Barefoot Sanders Law Magnet)

[We Know His Name] by Natalie Lugo(Greenhill High School).

These six scripts were selected from a field of over 100 submissions from a variety of high schools from all over the Metroplex.

HISTORY:

In 2001,  Kitchen Dog Theater partnered with the award-winning Dallas arts education organization Junior Players to create PUP Fest, a locally lauded (DFW Critics’ Forum Award) and nationally recognized (NEA) program dedicated to the cultivation of student playwrights. In 2017 the two organizations forged a new partnership with the Dallas Independent School District called D-PAC. By leveraging organizational assets, the new partnership allowed for expanded services and additional performance opportunities. D-PAC activities include three interrelated components: multiple in-school masterclasses led by local professional playwrights at 20 DISD high schools, a districtwide competition of fifteen-minute plays written, directed, and performed by students, and PUP Fest.

Founded in 1955, Junior Players is the oldest performing arts education nonprofit in North Texas, Kitchen Dog Theater’s annual New Works Festival is the longest running new play festival in the state of Texas, and Dallas Independent School District is the fourteenth-largest school district in the United States. Together, D-PAC is one of the most innovative student playwriting programs in the country and one of the largest in terms of reach, scope, and diversity of activities.”