Ask a group of middle school kids to write scenes on topics of their choice and you may be surprised with what you get. Chrystyna Dail, a facilitator of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s Playwrights of the Future program, has discovered just that in the past few months.

“For some reason, this year there are two scenes about plane crashes, one about abusive orphanages, scenes about kids being mean to other kids based on appearance,” says Dail, a 29-year-old doctoral student in theater history and performance studies. “And there’s one about the Easter bunny.”

Those miniature plays will be presented at CSPAC Wednesday night, ending a three-month residency during which university theater students led a group of about 30 middle school students in weekly playwriting, acting, directing and stage managing workshops.

The program’s participants are seventh- and eighth-grade theater lab and writing students at Hyattsville Middle School, one of two middle schools in the Prince George’s County with a special focus on the creative and performing arts.

Eighth-grader Richard Mariotte says when his teacher told him about the opportunity last year, he jumped at the chance.

“I was like, ‘That’s cool, I’ll do it,’ because I want to perform,” he says.

The students who sign up for the program do more than just perform, however. Under the guidance of Dail and two other facilitators, fellow doctoral student Kris Messer and senior mathematics and theatre major Betsy Rosen, the middle schoolers spent some time learning how to direct and a lot more time learning how to write scripts, Dail says.

The students were given assignments designed to get their creative juices flowing. For several weeks, they worked on writing a character discussion based on photos, a scene based on an interview and another scene based on something one overhears. Some of these scenes were further developed to become the vignettes that will be performed at the end of the program.

“You’re working back and forth between the writing and the performing always,” Dail says.

For those who want to act in the scenes, the facilitators set up a day of professional-style auditions, asking each student to perform a monologue, as well as introduce them to headshots, resumes and other staples of the audition process, Dail says.

“We try to stress that this is a process-oriented program, not a performance-oriented program, so we care less about the final product than that they’re learning along the way,” she says.

Fortunately for Mariotte, he won roles in two of the seven scenes in this year’s showcase, making him one of about 20 students who will perform Wednesday.

Theater lab and creative writing teacher Saralyn Trainor, who teaches all the participants of Playwrights of the Future, says though her students take writing and drama courses in school, CSPAC’s program gives them additional access to resources and professional instructors.

Having university students facilitate the program lets the kids enjoy it all the more, Mariotte says.

“We can relate to them a little more than teachers, because they’re younger,” he says. “They understand more how we are.”

Playwrights of the Future is just as inspirational for the facilitators as it is for their students, Dail says.

“There’s a willingness and a bravery about these students that you don’t get at the college level,” she says. “They don’t mind messing up and they don’t mind looking foolish.”

At the program’s beginning several years ago, professional actors from an Olney theater company held a staged reading of the plays written by the Hyattsville students. The full-fledged residency sponsored by CSPAC began two years ago, after a proposal to use the center’s resources to give the Hyattsville students additional instruction and performance opportunities.

Dail says she wishes there were more programs like Playwrights of the Future and hopes it will gain recognition from the community as time goes by.

“Middle school students have a voice that they want to share,” she says, “and very often people don’t listen to them, so most of them are just dying to write words down.”

Contact reporter Alia Malik at malikdbk@gmail.com.