Addie Seate - '25
From Page to Stage, Seate’s Camp Lets Teens Write Their Own Scripts
When Addie Seate was a sophomore in high school, she discovered something unexpected: she loved writing plays. Now a senior English major at SWU preparing for a career in education, she’s sharing that passion with the next generation through an innovative summer program she co-developed.
The Teen Summer Writing and Acting Camp at North Carolina’s Cherryville Little Theater, which Seate runs with her high school friend Wyatt Wilson, gives teenagers the opportunity to write and perform their own plays. What started as a modest venture with just five students has grown into a thriving program that now attracts 25 young writers and 20 performers.
“We wanted to teach other teenagers about writing plays,” Seate explains. The two-week program is split into distinct segments: during the first week, students collaboratively write an original play, and in the second week, they bring it to life on stage.
The results have been remarkable. Over three years, the students have created diverse works ranging from The Next Best Seller, a meta-theatrical piece about an author struggling with writer’s block, to Rom Prom, a romantic comedy, to their most recent production, Haunted, which follows four siblings who befriend the ghosts in their new home.
But perhaps more important than the plays themselves are the transformations Seate witnesses in her students. She recalls one participant who started in the program with his first-ever lead role. “The next year when he came back, he was telling us that he wanted to do theater as a career,” she says. “It was really encouraging to see him go from being really nervous about being a lead to being so much more confident.”
The program’s success stems partly from its organic origins. Seate’s own theatrical journey began in her high school drama program, where she and her classmates wrote and performed In Plane Sight, a murder mystery set on an airplane. That experience showed her the power of collaborative creativity—a lesson she now passes on to her students.
What makes the program particularly special is its continuity. Many students return year after year, with some attending since the program’s inception. The program has become so popular that it has reached its maximum capacity, drawing students from multiple schools in the area.
For Seate, who plans to become an English teacher, the camp has been invaluable practical experience in education and mentorship. She’s learned to balance structure with creative freedom, helping students shape their ideas into performable plays while ensuring their original voices shine through.
What began as a way for two theater-loving friends to stay connected after high school has evolved into such a meaningful project that Seate chose to focus her Honors thesis on studying creativity in the camp. “I knew these kids, and I knew their creativity, and so I knew that I was going to get good ideas,” she says. “It was a little more stressful,” she admits, “But I felt good about it.”
With plans already underway for next summer’s camp, Seate continues to share her love of theater with teens in Cherryville while preparing to inspire future students in her own classroom.