‘Stay inspired and say something’: Tuscola teen wins national playwright award

TUSCOLA, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – 19-Year-Old Kolby Hoffman is well on his way to making a sizeable impression on the world of theater. He graduated from Jim Ned High School this year and already has two national awards to his name: his original One-act play, Dearest Heart, winning a Thespy and the Thornton Wilder National Playwriting award.

“Everything that I write, I want to have purpose. I want to reach out to people, and I want people to feel it in their hearts. I want them to see something and walk away changed,” said Hoffman.

Dearest Heart tells the coinciding stories of two young soldiers on opposite sides of the U.S. Civil War. Josiah, a black Union soldier, is taken captive, and Henry, the white Confederate soldier, befriends him.

“It all culminates in one character trying to kill Josiah. Henry defends him and kills that man, leading to his execution by the captain,” Hoffman explained.

The story was inspired in part by his father and a conversation he shared with a friend. Hoffman says his friend’s experience of racism helped to show him a point of view outside of his own. Dearest Heart is the result of his desire to address the needless division and racism that exists today through the lens of the U.S. Civil War.

“It will never go away, and that’s sad to say. That’s the tragedy. But we can’t allow ourselves to become blind to it or think that we cannot fall victim to it,” Hoffman shared. “It’s just so easy for people to divide, but I wanted to show people how easy it is to unite.”

Creative writing has always interested Hoffman, as he mentioned. Without any interscholastic competitions to direct his passion, he joined the Jim Ned one-act play troupe during his freshman year. While he enjoyed the stage, the page continued calling his name. This year, his theater instructor introduced him to the International Thespian Society (ITS), allowing Hoffman to share his story with a wider audience.

“I’d always read Goosebumps, and wanted to write my own Goosebumps books. I would read a series and be like, I want to do that,” Hoffman recalled. “I have a lot of stories written in my head, but this was a big stepping stone for me because it was one of the first that I actually had written fully that I was ready to present to people.”

He was nervous to present the story due to its heavy themes and difficult subject matter. At multiple points, he said he felt like giving up on the idea and sticking to what he knows.

“I was thinking like, oh, this is unoriginal, this isn’t saying anything. Y’know this isn’t something that hasn’t already been said before,” Hoffman shared.

Hoffman explained that it was his friends and family who encouraged him to continue writing, for which he is incredibly grateful.

“My goal is not to make my plays successful, my goal is just to make my plays seen… Yes, there will be doubt, and there was doubt for me, but I just did it and I’m glad I didn’t doubt myself out of it,” said Hoffman.

He will be attending Yale University when school resumes, but he said he will not be pursuing theater professionally. Hoffman intends to continue writing on his own time and plans to release the full, hour-and-a-half-long version of Dearest Heart in the future, with hopes of one day seeing it made into a full production.