Upcoming Outreach!

We love to keep our followers informed on all the latest happenings, so check out this update from Bobcat Players Recording Secretary, Erin Bechdel, below:

Since its inception, a major focus of the Bobcat Players, in addition to bringing quality community theater to Beaver County and surrounding areas, has been outreach: creating opportunities for theater and the arts beyond the Bobcat stage. For several years, Bobcat Outreach has included a traveling program--usually a variety of one-act plays, which would be performed in various venues during the winter months (and sometimes other parts of the year). You may fondly remember such performances as On The Edge andWhat I Did For Love on our stage and Bedtime Stories at the Grand Valley Inn. However, beginning this fall, Bobcat Outreach is choosing to focus inward at the future of the arts: students.

After successfully involving students of Beaver in our productions for the last few years, the Bobcat Players Outreach committee felt that we should continue to grow this wonderful working relationship. Inspired by that, we have decided to sponsor a student playwriting competition this fall for students in the Beaver Area School District, our home district. Budding writers, as young as third grade, will have the chance to enter an original one-act play contest in their grade band, and the winning one-act from each grade band will be performed on the Bobcat stage by actors from the Bobcat Players and Beaver Area School District. Our hope is to encourage creativity in the youth of Beaver, and potentially expand our program to the whole of Beaver County in the future.

Working with their English teachers and members of the Bobcat Players, student playwrights will craft their original works (one-act plays only; no musicals or adaptations) following Standard American Format Style. Plays must be submitted by the playwright, not by a teacher, parent, or mentor. Each play will be read and evaluated by several members of the Bobcat Players Board of Directors. More information will be available on our website in September and we intend to release information about the performance in December. Please stay tuned for more about this exciting new venture!