Founded in 1987, Pegasus’ Young Playwrights Festival — the second oldest such festival in the country — inspires Chicago students to explore their histories, research their communities, and mine their personal journeys to write dynamic one-act plays for the stage. The 2020 festival includes full professional productions of three winning plays from an annual playwriting competition for high-school-age scribes in Chicago. The competition enhances language arts, encourages independent, high-level thinking, strong personal values and influences career development for Chicago’s teens. One of the three plays on the bill — Cobalt, by Senn High School student Reba Brennan – is directed by Columbia College alum Ilesa Duncan ’99, who is Pegasus Theatre’s executive/producing director. The festival’s production team includes Columbia College alums Dominique Zaragoza ’19, a graduate of the Theatre Department’s Theatre Design program and recipient of the 2019 John Murbach Columbia College Chicago Prize (props design), and Kevin Rolfs ’17, a graduate of the Theatre Department’s BA Program in Theatre Design (scenic charge). Columbia College Theatre Department student Jessica Minogue ’19, a graduate of the Theatre Department’s BA Program in Theatre, is the stage manager.
