These are some of the questions—comic, fantastic and profound--addressed in this year’s crop of short plays by HSU students, presented in the 12th annual 10 Minute Play Festival on two successive weekends, April 28 to May 8 in Gist Hall Theatre.
The Festival has been popular with audiences for over a decade, but this spring’s edition demonstrates the continuing enthusiasm of students who create it.
“This year’s Festival is a little unusual for the number of students who are back as writers, directors, actors or as part of the production for the third or fourth year, or more,” said coordinator and dramatic writing teacher Margaret Thomas Kelso, who began the Festival in 1998. “All that experience adds to the quality of these plays.”
For example, producer and graduate student Alex Gradine has participated in five festivals. Playwright Mackenzie Cox has written, directed or acted for four. This is at least the third Festival for at least a dozen of this year’s participants.
The Festival is the single theatrical event on the Department of Theatre, Film & Dance schedule that features only plays written, directed and acted by students. It’s the culmination of a year-long process that involves a faculty panel choosing from scripts that are written as part of playwriting courses.
This year there are six plays that run the gamut from comedy and fantasy to serious drama, or more likely are combinations of each-- in ten minutes.
Geek Theatre Presents: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Samsara, is a comedy-fantasy about a video game addict, his avatar and his lonely girlfriend, by Rachel Parti, directed by Gabriel Holman. When hunger has the power of a god and the passion to consume becomes an all-consuming passion, you get the Yum Yum Syndrome, a comedy by Steven Robert King directed by Christina Focht.
A space between life and death is imagined in two of the plays. In A Life at the End of the Tunnel, two young strangers caught in a timeless zone confront a demonic hustler who sells time. This play is by Mackenzie Cox, directed by Steven Robert King. In Finding the Spoons by Stephanie Rotelli (directed by Richard Renteria) an elderly couple manages the transit to eternity.
A convenience store robbery takes an unexpected turn in Chelsea Snyder’s comedy Get It, directed by Clayton Cook. Into the Maze by Calder Johnson follows a social worker who tries to help an abused spouse in a trailer park with no exit, directed by Stephanie Rotelli.
The 12th annual HSU 10 Minute Plays Festival is performed Thursdays through Saturdays April 29-May 1, May 6-8 at 7:30 pm and Sunday May 2 at 2 pm in the Gist Hall Theatre on the HSU campus in Arcata. Tickets are $5, $3 seniors & students, with a limited number of free seats to HSU students at each performance, from HSU Box Office (826-3928) or at the door. Margaret Kelso coordinator; produced by HSU Theatre, Film & Dance. http://HSUStage.blogspot.com.