Portage la Prairie's grade 11 PCI student Anna Gervais recently won a finalist position in a playwriting contest, and then saw it made into a production.

Gervais in front of the Tom Hendry Warehouse Theatre in Winnipeg (submitted photo)Gervais says she wrote and submitted it back in December. After it went into a production and was performed June 8th and 9th, it then placed third in a competition.

"It was performed at the Tom Hendry Warehouse Theatre in Winnipeg," says Gervais. "The play I wrote was based on the struggles of being a high school student and just trying to get through life as a young person. It's called Welcome to the Teenage Brain."

She notes she feels the success of the play can be attributed to an amazing cast and a very talented director.

Gervais says the performance was just as she imagined it should be. She describes the feeling of winning and seeing her play performed as having the world handed to her on a silver platter. Gervais adds it's something she didn't think would happen to her at age 17 and is now interested in directing after seeing what's done behind the scenes at a play.

Watching her own play on stage was interesting to her, she explains. It's not something you get to experience under normal circumstances where you write something, hand it in, and it gets marked, she says. Gervais describes it as empowering.

Gervais notes she plans to submit another play in the next competition.