About the Plays:

Some great pieces for performance or scene work.

The annual Keen Teens Festival of New Work (commonly referred to as Keen Teens) is a unique and free educational theatre program, run by the Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Keen Company. Keen Teens was formed in 2007 to improve the quality of plays written for high school students by commissioning scripts from highly regarded professional writers. Playwrights write material specifically for teenagers, in plays that must be 30 minutes long, have a cast size of 10 or more, and have an ensemble structure. Keen Teens then casts high school students from across the New York metropolitan area to perform in the World Premiere productions of these plays at an Off-Broadway setting.

Keen Teens: Volume 4 contains three short plays written by Nick Gandiello, Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen, Max Vernon, and Jason Kim, which premiered at Off-Broadway's Theatre Row as part of 2016 Keen Teens Festival of New Work. Another highlight of Keen Teens is that the plays are published, with the student's names listed, which helps build the canon of work for high school students. To date, more than 200 performances of Keen Teen plays have been produced all over the world, from Australia to Singapore.

How The Moon Would Talk by Nick Gandiello
No one quite knows how to deal with death, particularly high school students. Ally has just lost her sister to cancer, and her boyfriend Dwayne is trying to be as committed to her as possible. Set on a Harlem rooftop, a group of friends discuss what it means to grieve when no one else has the answers for you. (Cast: 6 female, 3 male).

Landlines by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen
Two announcers want you to make a pledge for their telethon today. They don't have mugs, but they have mice. An Old Woman drinks coffee from a bowl, a Teenage Girl calls her dead grandparents, and the kid's show characters Beep and Bop aren't actually real. A bonkers TV telethon goes in and out of the dark and asks existential questions of everyone no matter what side of the phone they're on. (Cast: 9 any gender).

30 Million with music and lyrics by Max Vernon and book by Jason Kim
Dee Dee wants nothing more than to be a star, so when her friend Gordon insists that she posts a video of her new song and it goes viral Dee Dee thinks her life is made. Her fellow classmates aren't as receptive to her newfound fame and quickly take to the internet to trash her and her song. Dee Dee's quick rise and fall may have lasted a short while on the Internet, but the effects on a teen last much longer. (Cast: 5 female, 5 male).