Of Pittsburgh's annual one-act play fests, City Theatre's Young Playwrights Festival is the most professionally run. It's also the most gratifying, because no matter the quality, who can fail to be impressed, since it's the work of middle and high school students?

Not that they don't have plenty of help. Now in its eighth year, the festival works with teachers on an annual cycle of education and development, leading to a competition in which three plays are selected for performance at each level, after which they get further development with a professional director and dramaturg.

The scripts are staged with young professional actors, often students or recent graduates of local theater programs, most often Point Park. They perform on a unit set, first in matinees for school groups and then, polished by performance, for the public.

This year, I was impressed with G. Bryan Briggs' lights and especially with Brad Peterson's sound effects and appropriate, scene-setting music.

The public performances are this weekend. These notes are based on the matinees I saw.

Middle school plays

Directed by Kellee Van Aken with an ensemble of eight actors, this trio makes a fair approximation of a three-course meal: appetizer, substantial main course and sweet dessert.

Leading off is "Art Smarts" by Margaret Saunders, now an eighth-grader at Christ the Divine Catholic Academy, Aspinwall. (In every case, the play was written when the student was a year younger.) In "Art Smarts," five middle school students struggle with seething peer dynamics and jockey to win an art competition. The real story is a struggle for popularity with a predictable ending, but the strength of the play is its funny dialogue and its comic view of the preening, bossy adults.

The impressive main course is "By Blood Alone" by David Jimenez, a Shady Side Academy freshman who wrote it as a student at St. Bede. About as ambitious as a one-act play can get, it has at its center another struggle between two adolescents, in this case brothers in 1956 Hungary, amid the revolution of that year and its brutal oppression by Russian tanks.

Benedeck is the rebel, active in protests, while Peter supports the Communist establishment. That will give Peter preferential treatment, but Jimenez, who has been to Hungary and knows something about his subject, is careful to show that self-interest (friendship, future prospects) drives Benedeck, too.

The conflicts between ideals are perhaps simplistically clear, but the big emotions are handled with maturity and given urgency by the accompaniment of Shostakovich's 11th symphony, said to have been inspired by the Hungarian uprising.

After that, we welcome the frothy dessert of "The Royal Pet" by Matthew Spinneweber, a Brashear freshman who wrote it at South Hills Middle School. In almost a parody of the conflict in the previous play, a young squire in a fairy-tale kingdom has to learn to balance friendship and ambition, honesty and tact. The mode is flippant and cartoony, with appealing appropriation of fairy-tale cliches.

The festival is something of an actors' showcase, too. Showing good variety is Vince Ventura as a wiseguy kid, Hungarian father and fairy-tale king, while Kelsey Robinson shines as the new girl artist and a rebel.

High school plays

"To Catch a Fish" by Olivia O'Connor, a junior at Knoch High School, is a touching story of two brothers, 19 and 9, and a harassed single mom. We never hear what happened to the absent dad, but the older boy has dropped out of school and is about to repeat his disappearance. I'm especially impressed that O'Connor doesn't tack on a conclusion that settles for a simple portrait of difficult emotions.

"Inside the Bookstore" by Bridget Liddell, a freshman at DePaul University, is a character study of an elderly book lover and a troubled high school kid. They mainly squabble, slowly evolving a relationship, but the dialogue often feels random and the plot points are unclear and unconvincing.

The high school program's high point is "Enlightenment," a parody noir detective story by Emma Wagner, a freshman at the Boston Conservatory who wrote it at Mt. Lebanon High School. Detective Rusty Clubs and pert secretary Madge are hired by a femme fatale to track down her absent fiance, along the way meeting another half-dozen characters.

The plot spirals into utter confusion, but who cares? Style is the thing, and Wagner's gum-popping, sax-breathing comic dialogue is matched by agile, funny performances.

Marci Woodruff directs the trio with an ensemble of seven. The actor chiefly showcased is Scott Miller, who features in all three plays. Mike Mazzocco is the conflicted older brother and a slew of figures in the detective caper, and Kristiann Menotiades is delicious as the sassy Girl Friday. Unusually, the young brother in "Fish" is played by an actual fifth-grader, Anthony DiRienzo -- and played well.