What She Does Avital Stolar is a playwright and teacher, both of which work together for her larger purpose of helping young students find their full potential. She is currently majoring in theatre and dance at the University of Texas at Austin and has been working for the past semester with a prominent playwright for young and family audiences, Suzan Zeder. She's had readings of multiple plays of hers at the Alley Theatre as part of the Houston Young Playwrights Exchange and Stages Repertory Theatre. She has also incorporated her theatrical skills into teaching, both at Breakthrough Houston and Congregation Agudas Achim Religious School, where her students just recently performed a play they wrote about an immigrant's journey to Israel.
Why She Likes It "I love writing in the voice of young people. Every single age, through grade school, provides me with a completely different outlook on life to explore. In my teaching I always try to put myself in the shoes of my students in the same way I do with my characters. I love the incredibly empowering feeling a student gets when they see their words on stage before a crowd as well as the challenge of making learning and fun indistinguishable."
What Inspires Her "That 'OH, now I get it!' response a child makes when they understand a newly introduced concept from seeing a play or during a lesson. Maybe I'm just a naive, idealistic college student but I like to feel that I'm making a difference in someone's life through my work."
If Not This, Then What? A nutrition consultant. As an out and proud vegan, Stolar has done research for more than a year into everything we should and shouldn't eat to make sure she was getting the nutrients she needed, so now she's kind of obsessed with how our diet affects our body's health.
What's Next This summer, Stolar is interning at Theatre Action Project in Austin and taking an institute specifically on drama-based pedagogy. And then graduation; she has one more semester until she's a Texas Ex.
More Creatives (In order of most recently published; click here for the full page).
Katherine Houston, visual artist Christopher Olivier, visual artist Dennis Lee Harper, sculptor David A. Brown, photographer Rachel Harmeyer, visual artist Kia Neill, installation artist Stacy Davidson, filmmaker Jennifer Wood, choreographer GONZO247 Kevin DeVil, filmmaker Kerry Beyer, photographer and filmmaker Robert Ellis, musician Davie Graves, musician and visual artist Robert Hodge, multimedia Mary Magsamen, photo and video artist John Harvey, theater Bret Harmeyer, visual artist Joel Orr, puppet master Rodney Waters, photographer and pianist Jeremy Choate, lighting designer Chuck Ivy, visual artist Tra'Slaughter, visual artist Jen Chen - visual art, designer Howard Sherman - Painter Nancy Hendrick - Founder of Dance Salad Misha Penton - Opera Singer and Theater Artist Ben Tecumseh DeSoto - Photojournalist Tracy Robertson aka Batty - Goth Fashion Designer Tierney Malone - Creative Type Dolan Smith - Painter Jenny Schlief - Mixed-Media Artist David Eagleman - Writer Anna Sprage - Painter Philip Lehl - Actor Andy Noble - Choreographer David McGee - Painter