RED HOOK — More than a dozen professional actors and volunteers are starring in a trio of plays written by three young Red Hook residents this weekend.
Crockett Macnie, Calena Poque and Hallie Siston, ages 12 to 14, each penned a 15-minute play for Falconworks Artist Group's "Off the Hook: The Sandy Plays," the culmination of an annual fall playwriting workshop hosted by Falconworks.
The three plays will be performed at 3 p.m. Saturday in the auditorium of P.S. 15, at 71 Sullivan St. in Red Hook. Entry is free, but donations will be accepted.
"This is really the first time we've given 'Off the Hook' a separate title," Falconworks managing director Chris Hammett said, adding that Falconworks' fall workshop was interrupted for weeks after Hurricane Sandy struck Oct. 29.
"We just looked at the plays they'd written, and that just describes the plays.... Although they're not necessarily directly about Sandy, each of them in its way references some sort of disaster or disruption to normal life and how you deal with that."
Starting in September, Macnie, Poque and Siston met once a week after school to learn about writing plays, and then they began crafting their own works. They also attended a one-day workshop Dec. 15 at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie.
"We have them work one-on-one with an adult who kind of helps them if they get stuck," Hammett said.
"We do a reading with some Vassar actors, students in the acting program up there. Depending how [Macnie, Poque and Siston] feel about some things, they come back and work on it a bit more."
The three began rehearsing in January, working with and directing the adult actors.
"I think that it's probably the first time in their lives where they're working with adults like peers," Hammett said. "The other actors treat them like adults. They're just a company of actors."
