Last night I got to see the world premiere of ten short plays by high school students, done as staged readings by the Magic Theatre company as part of the Young California Writers Program. The plays were all smart and often fanciful and funny–a play about the girl whose new retainer coaches her through talking with the guy she has a crush on; one where an Asian pop star recounts how his mother threw him out when he got a B in one subject, thereby forcing him to make his fortune as a musician; a goofy parody, occasionally in rhyme, of Restoration comedy (“Luckily I have two salamis with me!”); and Dr. Prostate, a surreal piece about a doctor who keeps injecting people with “needles filled with STDs!” Some of them were touching. All of them were well done. My favorite–and I know you’ll think I’m biased, and I am, but I also think I’m right, was a play called Saint. Its author, a lovely, lanky, very intelligent young woman, also happens to be my daughter, Sarcasm Girl.

It was a great day for the kid. She spent all day at the Magic (as they call it) rehearsing the show; the director added a couple of things that SG would never have thought of, but that turned out to be brilliant. It was also revelatory for her to see her words performed, to watch her characters brought alive, to hear people laugh at the funny bits, to know that she had written something that was genuinely affecting. Much praise was lavished on the kid; several directors and actors encouraged her to submit the play to competitions, and a woman who runs a theatre company which performs material about people with mental health issues (the play is set in a juvenile psychiatric ward) sounded her out about her company performing Saint.

By the time we got home last night she was like Eliza Doolittle singing “I Could Have Danced All Night.” Which meant I was the one saying “I understand, dear; it’s all been grand, dear, but now it’s time to sleep.” SG was shifted from her regular art class into the senior English honors class which had the playwriting residency program because her teachers know how theatre-mad she is. She will now go back to art class, and the senior English honors class will roll on its merry way. But what a cool experience for her.