ttawa's only completely independent student run theatre festival has just finished its second great year.
Youth Infringement, created last year by two Ottawa area high school students, Kinnon Elliott and Emily Pearlman, is a large scale theatrical festival and this year consisted of nine original plays written and produced entirely by young people.
A generous grant from the Community Foundation of Ottawa-Carleton made it possible for producers Pearlman (18) and Anna Seifreid (17) to realize their vision where students age 12-22 have a forum explored the limits of their creativity in all aspects of dramatic arts.
The grant also enabled the 70+ students involved to attend workshops with area professionals and each play was linked with a professional director in the community who acted as mentor to each cast and crew in hopes of forming links between the amateur and experienced arts community.
Old Ottawa South was very well represented including The Dodo Syndrome writer/director Alex Contreras, Unanimously Anonymous writer/director Arianne Matte and Bug actors Katie Black and Gab Gosseline.
Students involved came from a variety of different high schools and public schools from as close as Glebe and Lisgar to as far as Bell and Colonel By.
This year's festival was held May 11-13 at the Bronson Centre over the three nights. For more information call 728-7698 or e-mail them at youthinfringement@hotmail.com.