By Taylor Griggs

The poster for New Voices, the University of Oregon’s annual playwriting competition, says, “Before they became famous, they had to be discovered.”

This year, the successful student playwrights whose work has been “discovered” and is onstage now at the UO’s Hope Theatre are Meg Schenk and Connor French.

The idea behind New Voices is to give previously unpublished student playwrights a chance to see their work performed — and maybe give everyone else a chance to say someday, “I knew them when …”

French’s Just a Shack in the Woods and Schenk’s Smudge will be performed on weekends through May 4. Both plays are directed by Tricia Rodley.

Just a Shack in the Woods is about two boys, Austin (Chris Arreola) and Hunter (Cade Holbrook), who each find and use a shack in the woods as their space to develop from adolescence into adulthood, becoming close friends in the process. Arreola is especially thoughtful in his role playing the friend who is more of an “outsider.” He and Holbrook are both successful at embodying the age changes that their characters go through during the play, which encompasses their lives from early middle school to the end of high school.

In Shack, French aims to convey the relationship between two friends as they deal with the trials of growing up, dealing with issues like poverty and high school partying, which can serve to alienate some people just as it includes others. The depth of the material, however, is limited by the amount of information and time that is packed into such a short, one-act play. It is difficult to get an honest look at the characters’ relationship with each other, let alone with the other aspects of their lives mentioned briefly in the dialogue.

The concept of the play is unique, and a lot of the dialogue is quite funny and original. But when it’s over, it is difficult not to wonder if you have missed something.

Schenk’s Smudge has similar themes, as both plays focus on the broad repercussions of growing up and getting older, overcoming hardships as a young person and going through important rituals.

Smudge, though, concerns four women: Piper (Emily Mair), Olivia (Emily Rosales), Bea (Savvy Rogan) and Ryn (Alison Parker). As it takes an intimate look at these women and their senior year in college, Smudge has ambitious goals, focusing on each character and their dealings with sexual assault, depression and generational angst.

Schenk’s dialogue in Smudge is sprinkled with funny, heartfelt moments — a brief conversation between friends analyzing the true meaning of the maxim, “Life’s short, eat dessert first” stands out — but it ultimately suffers from the same affliction that French’s does in Shack. Because the plays are both short, they don’t have sufficient time to delve into the characters’ lives or relationships as meaningfully as we might want. Instead, they have to resort to poetic exposition to explain what has been going on offstage, which comprises much of the characters’ depths.

Ultimately though, the New Voices project makes it clear that French and Schenk are obviously both excellent and creative writers, and their actors talented and invested. But it would be lovely if, through more freedom in dialogue and production, the audience could get a fuller grasp of the themes of each play, both in terms of the characters that comprise it and the writers who conceived and invested in it all.

Student plays at the UO: Just a Shack in the Woods and Smudge

What: Original, unpublished plays — Just a Shack in the Woods by Connor French and Smudge by Meg Schenk

When: 7:30 p.m. on April 26-27 and May 3-4; 2 p.m. on April 28

Where: Hope Theatre, University of Oregon campus,

Tickets: $10 regular, $8 for ages 65+ and for UO faculty, staff and students (free to UO students with valid ID at the door within one hour of show times); available 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays at the ticket office, 1395 University St., by telephone at 541-346-4363, or online at https://bit.ly/2UBfMlp; handling fees for online and telephone orders