Keen Teens is a unique educational theatre program which seeks to improve the quality of plays written for high school students by commissioning scripts from highly regarded professional writers.  The playwrights’ only guidelines are that the plays be 30 minutes in length, involve a large cast, and reflect Keen Company’s mission of producing plays that are generous in spirit and provoke identification.  Keen Teens then casts high school students from the tri-state area to perform in the World Premiere productions of these plays at Off-Broadway’s Theatre Row.  Playscripts, Inc publishes the plays, which have already garnered over 162 performances around the globe.

In its first five seasons, Keen Teens produced plays by Courtney Baron, Barton Bishop, Bekah Brunstetter, Bathsheba Doran, Anton Dudley, Liz Flahive, Marcus Gardley, Jason Grote, Naomi Iizuka, Greg Kotis, Mike Lew, Cheri Magid, Winter Miller, Qui Nguyen, Ryan Pavelchik, and Jenny Schwartz.

This year’s performances will be May 18th through 20th, 2012 at the Lion Theatre at Theatre Row.

High school students from the tri-state area interested in participating in Keen Teens can audition at Theatre Row Studios, 410 West 42nd Street, on Tuesday January 31st (3:30-6:30pm), Wednesday February 1st (3:30-5pm), and Friday February 3rd (3:30-6:30pm). For more info about auditions, contact program administrator Blake Lawrence at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

For more information, go to www.keencompany.org/teens

BIOS

Michael Mitnick’s recent works include Fly By Night (premiered at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto, developed at Playwrights Horizons and Ars Nova); Sex Lives of Our Parents (premiered at Second Stage Uptown, developed at The Kennedy Center, included in Best Scenes and Monologues published by Smith & Kraus 2011); Spacebar: A Broadway Play by Kyle Sugarman (developed by The Lark and Studio 42); Babs the Dodo (premiered by W.E.T. in Seattle); and elijah (developed at MTC, The McCarter, and Chautauqua Theatre Festival). MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama. He is currently working on commissions from The Denver Center Theatre Company and The Manhattan Theatre Club.

Janine Nabers is currently the P73 Playwriting Fellow. Her plays include WELCOME TO JESUS, ANNIE BOSH IS MISSING, A SWELL IN THE GROUND, SERIAL.BLACK.FACE and WEST OF THE WILLOW TREE. Her short play JUNIPER; JUBILEE is published by Samuel French. Janine is currently a member of MCC Playwrights Coalition and the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer's Group. She is an alumna of Ars Nova, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab, The Dramatist Guild playwriting Fellowship and the 2011 Sundance Theater Lab. Most recent work: DECADE at London's Headlong Theatre (published by Nick Hern Books) and the musical A BEAUTIFUL SOMETHING developed at Williamstown Theatre Festival (music/lyrics by Sharon Kenny). Janine is currently working on a commission from Playwrights Horizons and is a Lila Acheson Wallace playwriting fellow at Juilliard.

Kathryn Walat’s Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen premiered Off-Broadway at the Women’s Project, and was published in Dramatics magazine and New Playwrights: Best Plays of 2007 (Smith & Kraus). Other productions include Bleeding Kansas (Hangar Theatre; Francesca Primus Citation), Know Dog (Salvage Vanguard Theater), and Johnny Hong Kong (Perishable Theater). Walat’s play Creation, developed at the O’Neill Theatre Center/National Playwrights Conference, will premiere in fall 2012 at the Theatre @ Boston Court in Los Angeles. She has received commissioned from MCC Theater (where she is also a member of the Playwrights Coalition), New Georges (where she is also an Affiliated Writer), and Yale Repertory Theatre; and her work has been developed at such places as The Public Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwrights Horizons, Electric Pear, Ars Nova, People’s Light & Company, Voice & Visions, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and Sundance Theatre Lab. She is the co-librettist, with composer Gregory Spears, of the new opera Paul’s Case, and has previously written two plays for young audiences: Androcles and the Lion, commissioned and produced by The Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, and Miss Electricity, commissioned and produced by La Jolla Playhouse. Both are published by Playscripts. Walat received her BA from Brown University, and MFA from the Yale School of Drama. She is currently a Professor of Performing Arts at the Savannah College of Art and Design.