Pasadena Teen Among Winners of National Playwright Contest

A 17-year-old playwright from Pasadena and her writing partner have been named among 12 winners of The Blank Theatre’s 29th Annual Young Playwrights Festival, the organization has announced.

Alyssa Ho, along with partner Miya Matsumune, 17, of Upland, authored the musical production “Makeup with Mallory: Special 29th Birthday Babe Edition!!”

The play, which explores the issue of so-called “cancel culture,” will be available for viewing online on the festival website at theblank.com/young-playwrights-festival through Aug. 6.

The Young Playwrights Festival has produced 345 plays written by young authors over its nearly three decades, organizers said.

Winning playwrights are provided careful mentoring and direction from industry professionals to help prepare their work for public performance and hone their skills, talent and confidence,” the statement said.

“Nowhere else in the nation can young playwrights receive the prize of seeing their vision come to life on stage in a professional production featuring known actors from film, television and theatre,” the statement added. “The plays are crafted by seasoned professional directors and each is given several public performances in a month-long festival.”

“Makeup with Mallory” tells the story of a social media influencer and her online birthday celebration, according to Ho, a senior at the California School of the Arts, San Gabriel Valley, in Duarte.

“The conflict is that eventually all of her audience, her fans, realize that she’s been lying about her age this whole time to them,” she said.  “It’s sort of a commentary on ‘cancel culture’ and the influencer sort of world.”

The pandemic played a significant role in shaping the work, Ho said.

“Because of the pandemic, we knew that the musical was going to be online. It was going to be recorded, videoed,” she said. “The live stream format came into mind so that you’d be more engaging for the audience at home. Then, of course after that, with the live stream, we sort of went in-depth with the sort of social media world that’s happening around us.”

Ho said she learned a lot through the festival process.

“This experience is really great. Honestly, it’s one thing to have your mini-musical produced by your peers and just people that you know and the staff at school. But, it’s a whole other thing to have it professionally done, getting people from outside who are already in the industry to take a look at what you’ve done and help you improve it.,” she said.

“We actually got a mentor. Her name is Lindsey Rosin, and she is one of the TV writers for Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.’”

Despite her success in playwriting, Ho said she also plans to focus on science when she continues her education in college.

“Although I really enjoy creative writing — it’s something that I’ve been doing for my whole life and went to high school for it — I’m also super interested in STEM,” she said.

“I definitely want to continue my two passions in both of them and hopefully find some ways to integrate them together somehow for a future career,” Ho said. 

More information on The Blank Theatre’s 29th Annual Young Playwrights Festival, including a complete list of winners, is available online at theblank.com/young-playwrights-festival.