Arts & Entertainment
10th Annual One-Act Play Festival Closes this Weekend
Staged by Mongtomery Playhouse in collaboration with the Gaithersburg Arts Barn, the 10th Annual One-Act Play Festival features six short plays on view Friday, July 22 at 8 p.m., Saturday, July 23 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, July 24 at 2 p.m.
The 10th Annual One-Act Play Festival staged by Montgomery Playhouse opened at the Arts Barn in Gaithersburg this past weekend on Friday, July 15, 2011. Although short-lived, with performances only this past weekend and the next - July 22 through 24 - the festival features a rich and varied repertoire of plays.
"The plays are divided into two groups - Group A and Group B," said Jeff Westlake, Theatre Director at the Arts Barn. "Audiences must purchase two separate tickets to see both groups of performances."
Group A includes Greg Powell's "After the Garden," Donald Steele's "Going to the Chapel" and Peter Tolan's "Pillow Talk." All three plays are presented back-to-back with a fifteen-minute intermission on July 23, 2011. Group B is comprised of Jeffrey Sweet's "Porch," Ellen Byron's "Graceland" and David Ives's "Soap Opera." These three are also presented back-to-back with a fifteen-minute intermission on July 22 and 24, 2011.
Group A opens with "After the Garden," a humorous modern take on the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. An omnipotent, imaginative and psychologically attuned God orchestrates the story of creation from behind a desk equipped with a laptop. He convinces a music-loving, politically-correct and sensitive Lucifer to start playing bad cop, while God makes all the rules and ensures that Adam, Eve and their progeny learn to abide. The script winks at a modern audience through references to Harry Potter's House of Slytherin, computers, progress reports, Chinese fortune cookies, cell phone conversations, and Einstein's Theory of Relativity. A vegan and scientifically-attuned Cain attempts to win over a self-consciously dogmatic God and what appear to be the beginnings of an Evangelical clan of followers. The play is directed by Ted Ballard.
"Going to the Chapel" Director Bruce Hirsch commented on the challenges of directing a two-person play. "We did all the blocking through rehearsals," he said. A conversation between a bride-to-be and her Matron of Honor uncovers a previously hidden string of ill-feelings between the two and their personal attitudes toward marriage.
"Pillow Talk," directed by David Jones, recounts what happens when two friends on a cross-country road trip suddenly have to share a bed in a mobile home in Arizona. Riotous discomfort ensues as offensive remarks fly off, needy feelings emerge, childhood stories are shared and hair-brained machinations concocted to justify their behavior. Even at conclusion, the audience is left to imagine what awaits them on the rest of their journey together.
Group B opens with "Porch," in which Midwestern family values and tradition clash with the appeal of anonymity and independence of a 1980s New York lifestyle. A daughter visits her ill father and returns to a set of choices and responsibilities forged in a past life ten years before her departure East. She has the opportunity to rekindle them in this play directed by Aly B. Ettman.
Directed by David Dossey, "Graceland" pits two starstruck women - one young and estranged from her Cajun community in Louisiana and the other older and trying to keep meaning alive through her devotion to Elvis - against each other as they compete over who gets into Graceland first. Their battle gives way to mutual understanding as they exchange stories and bond unintentionally during their shared pilgrimage.
"Soap Opera," directed by Christopher Mannino sets up the most unusual scenario in the group. Replete with laundry puns, this love story between a washing-machine repairman and his mother's Maypole IT40 is a self-described "Freudian minefield" and provides endless laughs.
The 10th Annual One-Act Festival is produced by David Jones with Lighting Design by John Hutson, Sound Design by David Jones, Stage Management by George Fitel, Sound Operation by Jeremy Hollis and Light Operation by Amanda Marie Imhof.
For a list of cast members, see the captions in David Jones's photographs accompanying this article.
To purchase tickets online for upcoming shows this weekend, click here. To reserve by phone call 301-258-6394.
To find out more about Montgomery Playhouse, click here.
