One of the winning selections in the fifth annual ?Famous for Fifteen Minutes? playwriting festival was written by 17-year-old Zawditu Maryam.

Six 15-minute plays will be performed nightly from March 27 to April 1 at the Daylesford Theatre.

Bermuda Music and Dramatic Society?s ?Famous for 15 Minutes? saw some 32 entries, said BMDS president Kelvin Hastings Smith.

?This is the most we have ever had and the poor old judges, who must remain anonymous, have had an enormous task of whittling that 32 down to six,? he said.

The six winners are Margie Harriott, who wrote ?The Art Lesson?, Kim Dismont Robinson, who penned ?Hey Sister?, Toby Butterfield, who authored ?Listers?, Julia Pitt, who wrote ?Pandora?s Drawers?, Doug Jones, who wrote ?Start? and Miss Maryam?s play, which is entitled ?He Did It Again?.

Mr. Smith added that Miss Maryam is well known in BMDS circles.

?She desperately tries to be involved in almost every production that we do,? he said. ?During the course of last year she was successful in being appointed the assistant to the director for last year?s pantomime.

?I was in the pantomime and I had the benefit of being with her for three months or more and she proved to be a level-headed, sensible, enthusiastic theatre person who one has a great deal of trust in as an actor and someone who is respected by backstage crew. She did a remarkable job and we are all grateful for her assistance.

?When I received all the scripts and entries, I was very surprised to see that Zawditu had written something for us and I was wonderfully surprised when I saw the list of the winning six. I was over the moon.

?She has produced a fabulous piece and we are delighted at Daylesford and as the producer of ?Famous for 15 Minutes?, I will be chasing after her like she was chasing after me in the panto.?

The playwriting festival benefits the BMDS Charitable Trust, which was set up to provide bursaries and scholarships for those aspiring to work in the theatre.

The aim of ?Famous for 15 Minutes? is for playwrights to pen 15-minute plays, submit them, and then they are judged on a blind basis, added Mr. Hastings Smith.

?That process produces six winners and the six winning plays are then produced and put on at Daylesford Theatre for one week. On the final night there is a theatre professional who will have read everything before hand and will present the winner with a cheque for $250 and the Golden Ink Well.?

During an interview with Miss Maryam spoke frankly about her unexpected win and her future hopes and dreams in theatre.

Although she has written bits and pieces to date, this is the first play that she has completed and her decision to enter the festival came about last year.

?Last year, one of my friends had entered and I wanted to enter then but I hadn?t finished the piece,? said the CedarBridge Academy prefect.

?I was kind of surprised, but I had already told myself there were 32 people and I knew a couple of people that were entering,? said Miss Maryam. ?And I thought I?m not going to get it and then when (BMDS member) Nicola Wilkinson came to my class and told me that my play had been selected and I was like, okay.?

The content of her play is a horror that many young people around the world face.

?It?s about a person who was raped by their father and they are telling the story for the first time,? she said. ?So, it is a little drama that pushes your buttons and that is what I like to do. It has two characters neither of whom have a name ? it is child one and child two.?

She said it was not based on personal experiences, but was ?pulled from movies and stuff.?

?I just started writing and that is what ended up coming out of the story,? she said.

Ultimately her aim is to become a director so she has tried to do as much of everything in theatre as possible so that she can understand the process.

?My first production was ?California Suite? and I did props for that, then I did the (Christmas) panto and now I am working on ?The Story?.

?Then it is ?Famous for 15 Minutes? and after that I am supposed to be assisting with an upcoming performance.

?I like to take the whole thing into perspective, because that is what you have to do to be a director. You can?t focus on one point. You have to know how to do everything. It is better to know even if you are not great at it ? you know how it works.?

She has been writing for several years, but she says she regularly got on her ?teachers? nerves? because she always wrote more than was required.

?I tend to write a lot and to this day my teachers still get mad at me because I can?t limit myself to a certain amount of words and they have to mark it and they get mad.? Miss Maryam said she hopes to attend university in Canada.

Asked how she disciplined herself for the play, she said: ?It was easy because I couldn?t write for any longer than 15 minutes.?

When queried about her love for theatre, Miss Maryam defined her experiences at the BMDS as all about ?networking?.

?Exposure, experience and networking,? said the teenager.

?Networking is what I am trying to do. I plan to meet as many people down here as I can and establish some sort of connection so that when I come back from college ? or if I come back from college ? I want to start my own company.

?There really isn?t enough theatre here ? professional theatre ? and that is what?s going to help increase our tourism and everything else. So, I will have enough people behind me to say, ?she can do this? ? just the support basically.?

It has been an interesting exercise for Miss Maryam to work in the theatre.

?I don?t really want to be an actress. I would prefer to be behind the scenes, but they both give me a thrill and I would do either one any day: ?Give me a stage and I will have one ? take away my stage and I will die?.?

Her parents attempted to get her to focus more on her school work, but the teen said: ?They tried to do that and it didn?t work. It was because my grades were dropping and my teachers were saying, ?she focuses too much on theatre and not enough on her school work?. And I was like, ?well I am good at theatre, I am not good at your class?.

?It is something that I love and have fun with, so my parents were like, ?maybe you should give it up?. But I was like I won?t give it up for anything no matter what you say or how bad my grades are. I won?t give it up. And I have managed to make it through.?

Tickets are $20 and are available from the Daylesford Theatre Box Office from 5.30 p.m. to 7 p.m. or online at www.bmds.bm. Tickets for the Gala Night are $75.