Today we’d like to introduce you to Hannah Martin.
Hi Hannah, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
When I was a freshman in High School, my Theatre 2 class was given the assignment to write a ten-page play. We each came up with a story and were sent off. I very quickly fell in love with playwriting and instead of writing ten pages, I wrote over 30. I fell in love with theatrical writing and wrote a monologue for a theatre competition during my freshman, sophomore, and junior year. I received straight superior scores all three years. During my junior year, I submitted a play to the Utah Theatre Association playwriting competition and placed 2nd. Later that year, stemming from that, I entered a National Play Apprenticeship and won first place. My senior year came along and I once again entered the UTA Conference playwriting competition, although I didn’t place with their competition my play was passed to the New Voices playwriting competition, where it was one of the winners. Towards the end of my senior year of High School, my theatre teacher approached me and asked me to adapt my play, ‘The Father, The Daughter, The Fox, and The Mother’ so that our class could do it as our Spring Show, and lo and behold come May 2022, my show was performed by The Kearns High School Productions Company. It was a dream come true and I had the opportunity to direct and design in. I am now in college, and ‘The Father, The Daughter, The Fox, and The Mother’ has been proposed at Utah Valley University, as students can submit new work to be considered. Hopefully, I will know soon, but I am looking forward to the future. I am hoping to go to Julliard’s Playwriting Graduate Program and continue to write. I am seeking a BFA in Stage Management with a Minor in Marketing and I cannot wait to see what the future holds in terms of playwriting. I am working on some really exciting stuff. Write what you know!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has most certainly not been a smooth road. My biggest advice is “Write What You Know” from the Movie ‘Tick, Tick…Boom’ and all my plays have all been based on real struggles I have had. My parents are divorced, my dad left, and I have had to provide for myself in a lot of ways. My play ‘The Father, The Daughter, The Fox and The Mother’ focuses on losing a parent when they walk out, and what comes from that. The confusion, blaming yourself, the bottling of every emotion. My play ‘We’re All Mad Here’ focuses on suicide prevention, as I have struggled with severe depression and anxiety. It is an adaptation of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ where Alice commits suicide and realizes her mind lost that wonder and struggles with that as Wonderland serves as an afterworld. I wanted to highlight my own feelings and struggles as I have fought with depression. Playwriting and theatre have been my escape in that sense. I have faced writer’s block, and my fair share of backlash concerning my plays, however, I want to bring awareness to problems that face our generation. I have struggled, and writing is that way to get out. It gives me a way to express how I am feeling while putting it on a stage.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My Name is Hannah Martin, I am 18, and I am a playwright and owner of ‘Play It Wright Theatricals’ I am known for being “Theatre Google,” having everyone’s birthdays memorized, and for writing plays. Theatre is what I specialize in, and what I love. When I am not working on a show, I am painting or seeing a show. My mind is hardwired for theatre and facts. I am most proud of my play ‘The Father, The Daughter, The Fox, and The Mother’ that was performed. It had two casts, a design team, and I had the privilege of writing and directing it. It was an absolute dream come true and easily represents what I am most proud of. It was more than a year-long process, and when it finally came together and closing night came along, I could proudly look back at what I had done. I am different because I write what I know. I don’t try to write anything that I am not well versed on, and if I am not well versed enough to write to the level I want, I always do my research to make sure everything is being portrayed as authentically as possible. I write so that anyone can see themselves in the characters I show. Everyone should be able to see themselves in a production, and I want to honor that in the shows I write.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
Something that is surprising about me is that I used to play soccer, and didn’t seriously commit to theatre until 8th grade, and didn’t write my first play until I was in 9th Grade. I played soccer for 10 years, and played with a competitive travelling team. I often will tell this to people that I do theatre with and they are shocked that I would make such a drastic switch. I have written multiple shows, and they have all won awards, but when I tell people I only started 4 years ago, they are beyond shocked. I think that soccer is way shocking to most people though, because they may see me doing sit-ups or soccer drills with random props at rehearsal because, sometimes, I do miss it, and then they are shocked that I used to do sports so heavily. When I joined the theatre, however, something that was so shocking was how accident-prone I was. In just the four years that I did High School Theatre, I had 2 concussions, crushed my knee cap, had a burst eye blood vessel, twisted my ankle, re-hurt that same knee multiple times, slipped on the stage, slipped on lots of ice and much more. My director and best friend often encouraged me to be bubble wrapped or wear a helmet.
Pricing:
- If you are interested in staging a production of ‘The Father, The Daughter, The Fox, and The Mother’ the pricing options are below. Please email me for discussions on getting the rights/more information on the show!
- One-Act Version- $75 for each performance, and a script fee of $50.
- Full Version- $100 for each performance, $75 script fee, 8% of revenue
- Music and Cues- The music for the full-length version belongs to my composer friend, and all proceeds go to him. To purchase the music for the full version or one act version, there is a rental fee of $100.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/han.mar07/
Image Credits
Show Image Credits: Austin Kimbell
Logo Credits: Hannah Martin
Headshots: Bre Welch with PepperFoxPhoto
