Shady Side Academy senior's script earns Young Playwrights recognition
Shady Side Academy senior Sarah Scheid conceded she knows little about theater and even less about marriage.
The 17-year-old, however, combined the two, and her resulting script, “'Til Death Do Us Part,” earned an honorable mention in City Theatre's Young Playwrights Contest.
“I was really surprised,” Scheid said. “I never wrote anything before like a play, or anything, really. I used to try to write stories when I was little, but I never really finished.”
The play will get a public reading at the Young Playwrights Festival at 7 p.m. Oct. 9 at City Theatre's Lester Hamburg Studio, 1300 Bingham St., on Pittsburgh's South Side.
Scheid's script was one of more than 350 scripts submitted by students in Western Pennsylvania and Northern West Virginia.
“'Til Death Do Us Part” is a one-act play staged in six scenes that focus on a married couple and their 25 years of sitting together at the kitchen table. The play chronicles the couple's relationship from newlywed bliss, to marital minutia, to weathering health battles.
“I was crying my eyes out while reading it,” said theater teacher Dana Hardy-Bingham, who urged Scheid to enter the play contest.
Hardy-Bingham said she thought the script was moving and believable, which caught her off-guard.
“Sarah has absolutely zero experience on stage, behind the scenes or with dramatic writing,” Hardy-Bingham said.
“She's written a play that is so simple, yet so moving. She's created characters who take journeys.
“I couldn't be more proud of her.”
Scheid wrote “'Til Death Do Us Part” as the final exam for one of Hardy-Bingham's classes. It was one of six student plays selected to be performed at SSA's fourth annual Original Theatre Works Festival, held last spring.
“It was cool how they seemed to embody what I imagined when I wrote it,” said Scheid, adding that she's eager to hear her words come to life with the professional reading in October.
Scheid, who rows for SSA and earned a spot on the US Rowing Junior World's Development Team, plans to attend the University of Pennsylvania next year and study creative writing.
Tawnya Panizzi is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 412-782-2121, ext. 2, or at tpanizzi@tribweb.com.
