TV actors vie to debut plays by child writers
By Tony Castro, Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 11/13/2008 12:11:06 AM
CHATSWORTH - Imagine the voice of actor Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer on the television series "24": "The following takes place between the closing of school and dinnertime." Bong. Bong. The seconds on the clock tick loudly.
The site is Superior Street Elementary School, and there are a lot of faces of counterterrorist agents you regularly see on "24."
Their focus is on nine subjects.
But they aren't terrorists. They are fourth- and fifth-graders, and the only thing they're a threat to is bad screenwriting.
With the help of professional screenwriting mentors, they have each written short scripts that actors from the cast of "24" and other shows are bringing to life in the school auditorium in front of parents, friends and news photographers and video cameramen.
Veteran actor Gil Bellows, who played a State Department officer in a TV movie prequel to the seventh season of "24," recently portrayed the dog Spike in student Nathan Torres' script "Good Dog ... Or Is He?"
But Bellows only raised the bar for fellow cast mates Janeane Garofalo, Carlos Bernard, Mary Lynn Rajskub and Carly Pope in their performances.
"This is really remarkable. Can you imagine having children, fourth- and fifth-graders, and having their written work brought to life by these professional actors?" said Superior Street Principal Jerilyn Schubert. "Nothing like this has ever happened in our school."
It is happening, Schubert said, because of the Young Storytellers Foundation, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that each year mentors students at a couple of dozen LAUSD schools and then stages performances of screenplays written by the children.
Actor-writer Jason Pugatch, the group's communications director, said it is an effort the mentors - including top writers and producers - and the performers take seriously.
In the minutes before the performances at Superior Street last week, Pugatch directed the audience to the scene on stage, where the professional actors were talking to the student writers, and described real competition for parts in the upcoming plays.
"Right now these actors that you have seen on television are really fighting to get into the show," he said. "These are young, brilliant writers who have written every word that you're going to hear tonight.
One of the writers, fifth-grader Katie Anderson, has already written a book, she said, and is apprehensive about the debut of her script.
"It's about two boys and two girls who ask each other to a homecoming dance and then everything gets mixed up. It's a comedy," she said. "I'm really excited. It means so much to have written this."
All the student writers are introduced by their mentors - among them "24" executive producer Howard Gordon, who drops a compliment on his protégé , Nathan, that professional writers might swoon for.
"Nathan has a knack for slapstick comedy," Gordon tells the audience. "If he had lived years earlier he might have written gags for Charlie Chaplin or Harold Lloyd."
Nathan appears unfazed by the compliment, but on stage two of the actors look at each other with raised eyebrows.
The school's principal is understandably pleased.
"The members of Young Storytellers for six weeks have trained these students in one-hour sessions," she said. "They worked with them and mentored them out of dedication and caring.
"And the kids just enjoy writing. I think they've been inspired by these professional screenwriters to go ahead and dream that perhaps one day they may be professional television writers themselves."
