At age 17, budding playwright Elise Vanase doesn’t yet have an agent or know the ins and outs of marketing her scripts, but her success rate so far is 100 percent.

Vanase, a senior at Norwich Free Academy, has been working on a play for the past two years, titled “Dates,” about a group of high school friends who collectively engage in a bet over which one can kiss his or her date first at the Homecoming Coronation dance.

Vanase showed the play to the former NFA drama teacher last spring, who rejected it but offered some constructive criticism for improving it. Vanase made major changes to the script, deepening characters and relationships.

In August, Vanase and other regulars in NFA drama classes received an email from Philip Trostler introducing himself as the new NFA drama teacher and play director.

Vanase sprang into action. She was the first student to welcome Trostler to the school, and oh, by the way, she wrote in her email, could he read her play? He agreed.

“Then he wrote ‘I kind of like this. Let’s do it,’” Vanase recalled of the email exchange before the two had even met.

Trostler, who likened the play to “American Pie without the sex, but with kissing,” thought it could signal a fresh start for his tenure as director of NFA plays. The school traditionally has staged all-time classics, from “Fiddler on the Roof" to “Our Town,” and Vanase has performed in some of those.

“Dates” would not only would save the school money by not having to pay royalty fees, Trostler said, but potentially could be more attractive to high school students from NFA and other schools. The play is written in vernacular high school language with “snappy dialogue” and familiar themes.

“Dates,” with a cast of 17 student actors — Vanase is serving as pseudo-co-director and is not in the play — will be performed at at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday in Slater Auditorium at NFA. Admission is $5 for NFA students, senior citizens and pre-high school students, and $10 for adults and students of other schools. Tickets will be available at the door.

For this week’s performance, the script is set, Vanase and Trostler said, but she continues to work on the play for future improvements. She thanked the 17 cast members for helping with that process.

“When I wrote it, I had an idea how the kids would be played,” Vanase said. “They’re bringing changes, new interpretations, suggestions for playing different scenes.”

On stage during a recent rehearsal, 15 students acted out a climactic scene at the coronation dance. Arguments, awkward social moments, teasing and a touch of bullying played out as Trostler and Vanase looked on, taking notes. Trostler instructed students not in the main dialogue to not forget to act out the pantomime goings-on at a high school dance.

Freshman Garrett Owens, 13, of Norwich plays the leading character, Theo.

“I’m the socially awkward kid among strangers. I’m a pretty relatable character,” Owens said of the realism of his character.

Olivia Pecoraro, 17, of Canterbury is a close friend of Vanase. Pecoraro said the playwright based the character Pecoraro plays, Gretchen — a self-confident, rough-and-tough tomboy — after her. “Especially my clothes,” she said. Pecoraro will wear clothes from her own wardrobe for the play.

Trostler said the setting in a modern U.S. high school was another savings in the production. No costume costs, and the sets are classrooms, a few homes where students will prepare for the coronation dance and the dance itself.

Something else might be familiar about Vanase’s fictional New Falls Academy — the red and white school colors already ubiquitous at NFA.

“It’s not officially the actual NFA, although it’s based on it,” Trostler said.

c.bessette@theday.com