Two exciting artistic traditions continue this weekend. Both of them involve a group of CA's budding playwrights and the presentation of their creativity. As part of the school's own 24-hour Play Project, five different student writers have created 10-minute plays just this week.  After a quick read-through on Friday, they have 24 hours to turn the work over to a student director, who casts the shows with willing students and who have a day to block the show, memorize lines and perform it on Saturday night, January 20.  Jan De Sal introduced this cool new adventure in speed writing and performing just last year, and the students have a great time engaging with the original material and each other.  The shows will be performed at 7 p.m. in the Basement Theatre.  Admission is free; donations of canned goods are encouraged. A really fun event!

On Sunday and Monday night, another group of 14 playwrights will debut their work, as well.  Now in its fourteenth year, the Colorado Academy/Curious New Voices collaboration allows students to engage deeply in the creative process.  Working with Dee Covington, the Education Director at the renowned Curious Theatre in Denver, these students spend a few months developing their pieces, meeting weekly to discuss and workshop.  In any given year their work explores a theme raised by one of the full-length plays that the Curious is producing; this year that "companion" piece is Detroit '67, a play about family, Motown, and the Detroit Race Riots of 1967, written by Dominique Morisseau.  Half the group has plays performed on Sunday, and the other half goes in Monday. Admission is also free for this event. I look forward to seeing what these young writers have come up with!