The powerful and gripping Forty Miles from Tel Aviv is surprisingly 18-year-old Brandon Alter’s first script, featuring richly drawn characters, a good combination of light and extraordinarily tense situations, and deep cultural insights in a play that is also very timely. The show is set in the West Bank in the living room of Malik (Diep Huynh), a middle-class lawyer, and his wife Salah (Anahid Shahrik). Their young children at school and Malik off work for the day, the deeply in love couple are playfully enjoying one of their rare times alone, but something is troubling Malik and keeping him from being able to completely enjoy the moment, and keeping Salah puzzled. When the phone call finally comes, Malik goes into the other room and brings out the vest and explosives for his suicide bombing. It’s the last thing Salah had expected, and results in a brilliantly written debate between husband and wife as she desperately tries to talk him out of it and he steadfastly refuses to budge.

The debate is filled with a variety of emotions and philosophical nuances concerning politics, society, human relationships, the value of life, and the morality of war and terrorism. From his own studies and discussions with experts in the politics and society of the Middle East, Brandon brings to life a realistic portrayal and a rare glimpse into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – in this case the home of a suicide bomber who is an intelligent, happily married lawyer. With him passionately presenting his case for the terrorist act, and his wife presenting her case against it with equal passion, the script gives us a fair slice of both sides of the debate. Under the gifted directorial abilities of Delicia Turner Sonnenberg and the remarkable work of Diep Huynh and Anahid Shahrik, the characters and the nuances of emotions are beautifully displayed.

Due to huge budget cuts, only two winning scripts could be chosen from this year’s contest, and 16-year-old Tyler Moselle earned the other honor with How They See It – another drama made timely by a rash of terrible events. In this case it is the rash of high-profile child abductions that have swept our country, but here it is presented as completely through the eyes of children. Like Peanuts cartoons, adults are never actually seen, with any adults being portrayed as mere voices from other rooms or silhouettes behind the scenes. Three young friends, Megan (Becca Foresman), Tara (Briona Daugherty), and Kyle (Jack Novak), all in early elementary school, are confused by the events and ramifications of their missing friend who is suddenly on the news as well as the worried and confounding messages from adults.

Tyler, who conceived and wrote the entire rough draft of the play after a night of babysitting, does an excellent job of not only offering us a different and critical viewpoint, but also injects intriguing and believable personality quirks into the characters. The three children are amusingly and realistically portrayed by the actors directed by Linda Libby.

There were four different winners from the young writers who get staged readings of their plays including Scruffy by 13-year-old Ryan Aanerud, Kidnapped! by 13-year-old Mikaela Aziz, Not Enough Time by 11-year-old Tanner Dufford, and the one they did on opening night – Madeline Learns to Fly by 10-year-old Taylor Renteria. Taylor’s Madeline is a little robin who is eager to be taught how to fly, and in her eagerness ends up skipping the more mundane pedagogical route in favor of learning via a crash course from the school of life. Walt Ritter is a riot as the evil (and hungry) Fearful Falcon who becomes her prime motivator!