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Porter's play to be read at Kennedy Center
After making its debut at St. Andrew’s, Ritchie Porter’s one act, “Permanent Record,” will be read at the Kennedy Center during this weekend’s Page-to-Stage Festival.
Porter wrote “Permanent Record” for a series of one-act plays, “Cradle to Grave,” which students performed in fall 2015.
“For several years I had an idea of a short play about somebody who gets pulled over for a routine traffic violation and the police officers mysteriously know a lot about the person and what they’ve done in their lives—their permanent record,” Porter said.
He wrote the play over a weekend in September 2015, a month before “Cradle to Grave” premiered, and workshopped it right away with the student actors.
“The actors were very helpful in honing the final script,” he said. “They gave me feedback on things that worked, things that didn’t work, things that are difficult to say as actors.”
The Page-to-Stage Festival, where local actors will perform “Permanent Record” as a table read, will be another opportunity for Porter to polish his play.
“This will be a really fun way to get my work out there and see what happens,” Porter said. “The stakes are, in some ways, rather low, but the payoff could be really wonderful.”
He said outside projects like this are personally and professionally invigorating, and give him energy he can put into his work at St. Andrew’s.
“It makes me think more about how I can inspire my students and motivate them to create art and plays that they might be able to take elsewhere,” Porter said.
“Permanent Record” will be performed at 4 p.m. Sept. 4 on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. The festival is free. Click here for more information.
St. Andrew’s Episcopal School is a private, coeducational college preparatory day school for students in preschool (Age 2) through grade 12, located in Potomac, Maryland.