Watching a performance at Stevenson High School was the event that triggered, Producer of Tens by Teens, Lawrence Keller‘s imagination of what education could be like. As he gazed at the student written, directed, and acted plays, he immediately knew that he wanted to create something like that at LT.

“This was one of my dream projects,” Keller said. “It gives students an opportunity for them to share stories that matter to them with an audience.”

Tens by Teens is an evening of 10 minute plays that are written, directed and acted out by students. Most of the plays are written during playwriting class, and then approved by Keller.  The performance is scheduled to take place from April 15-17 at the Performing Arts Center at SC, and it will be the 10 year anniversary of this event, Keller said.

Because it is such a special year, Keller has decided to include readings of past plays. A reading is where students sit on stage and just read through the script rather than act out the whole thing.  He hopes that some former students, and members of Tens by Teens will come back for this event, Keller said.

The different groups of plays meet twice a week for practice, usually in a class room, until tech week where they get to use the stage actor, Kevin Garcia ’17 said. Garcia is an actor in “The List,” and he has been in eight plays since his sophomore year.  One of these plays includes last year’s Tens by Teens, Garcia said.

“It is the final play of the year and not only is it super fun, but it is all done by the students, and it is just really awesome to see how we can do everything on our own without having an actual adult director in charge of everyone,” Garcia said.

Another student who is part of Tens by Teens is Director of “100 Billion Galaxies,” Riley Dominiak ’18. This is her first time being part of Tens by Teens, but she has been involved in past school shows and musicals.  There is a very long and complicated process involved in creating the show.  First, the writers submit their shows to be evaluated by Keller.  After that, anyone who is interested in applying to be a director may submit an application of their qualifications to Keller.  Once the directors are picked, they get a packet with all the shows and they rank them based on how much they would want to work with that particular show.  Then, the directors and writers meet to discuss their vision for the show.  Next, is the audition where all of the directors and writers get to cast their production.  Students will come in one by one and recite a monologue to the panel of directors and writers.  From there the directors finally pick who is in each show, which is the hardest part because sometimes multiple directors want the same people in their show.  Although the show takes a lot of hard work, all of the students enjoy it, Dominiak said.

“I’m really blessed to be part of Tens by Teens,” Dominiak said. “It’s a really unique experience that not a lot of schools get to do.”