FRIDAYS
7/11, 7/18, 7/25
BINGO PURGATORY by KT Bugenstein & Gina Clepper
8 MINUTES by Koryn Naylor
TRINKETS by Kinsey Cantrell
BREAKING THE WALL by Emily Cipriani
ANARCHY! by Alex Lacey
SATURDAYS
7/12, 7/19, 7/26
INSTRUCTIONS FOR AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS by Gyasi Hall
SUE ELLEN FINDS A HOBBY by Hannah Woods
LATE FLIGHT HOME by Amelia Koontz
CLOTHESLINES by William Lekan
FRESH FOLD DETERGENT by Tova Seltzer
227 North 3rd Street | Columbus, OH 43215 | 614.221.5418
MadLab will present The Young Writers Short Play Festival, a collection of ten short plays written by Columbus area high school students. MadLab is a non-profit organization that provides an artistic haven for the creation and experience of original works. Part of that effort involves giving young people the opportunity to create original works. This festival was born from that goal. MadLab sought out submissions from area high schools and chose the best plays to produce. Student playwrights will work with experienced local playwrights to help them with their plays.
July 11th-26th, 2014
Fridays & Saturdays
all shows at 8pm
$12 regular admission
$10 students/seniors
BINGO PURGATORY by KT Bugenstein & Gina Clepper
The Second Life Bingo Hall is the intermediate stage between life and death. Here, people who die come and play bingo. Holding the winning card allows them to pass through the black door into the great unknown. Nat arrives in the bingo hall after an accident on the subway and befriends a group of oddballs. As they chat, Nat unintentionally helps them with their problems, and one by one they leave through the black door to the mysterious white light.
CAST AND CREW
Will Haynes as Death
Becky Horseman as Woman
Randi Morgan as Florence
Chad Hewitt as Max
Catherine Quamme as Harriet
MaryBeth Griffith as Lee
RJ Shuman as Nat
Greg McGill as Hatchett
directed by Julia Ferreri
8 MINUTES by Koryn Naylor
Two people who have no history meet on a park bench. The male figure is quite mysterious and states that he can get to know anyone in merely minutes, the female disagrees. The whole play focuses on the fact that if the sun were to stop shining, it would take 8 minutes for people on earth to know before they were to live in complete darkness. The question is posed of what would the woman’s 8 minutes be. As the woman declares her eight minutes, the male starts to get to know her better, and the lighting would dim throughout the play signifying that these are actually their last few minutes. The final Scene would be blacked out completely, revealing that they were experiencing their actual last 8 minutes before the sun goes out.
CAST AND CREW
Austin Andrioff as Connor
Hannah Woods as Casey
directed by Angela Cutrell
TRINKETS by Kinsey Cantrell
While fighting over their dying mother’s antique suitcase, two siblings come to terms with the impact their mother has had on their relationship and their lives.
CAST AND CREW
Julie Azelvandre as Adelaide
Stephen Woosley as William
RJ Shuman as Nelson
directed by Becky Horseman
BREAKING THE WALL by Emily Cipriani
Aden is reunited with an old friend, but the more time he spends with Evelyn, the more he distances himself from reality. After discovering the real reason behind their unusual reunion, Evelyn must convince Aden to accept her for what she really is, not what he wants her to be.
CAST AND CREW
Emily Cipriani as Evelyn
Chad Hewitt as Aden
directed by Audrey Rush
ANARCHY! by Alex Lacey
While reading the newspaper, a man is interrupted by an angry mob of anarchists breaking into his home. They are planning on overthrowing the government.
CAST AND CREW
Peter Graybeal as Guy
MaryBeth Griffith as George
Austin Andrioff as John
Greg McGill as Thomas
Casey May as James
Colleen Dunne as Benjamin
directed by Stephen Woosley
INSTRUCTIONS FOR AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS by Gyasi Hall
Ryan, a video store clerk, begins to question the importance of his life and everything he’s done when he is struck by a surreal event: His friend and co-work Chloe comes to work dressed up as a Ghost in a Bed sheet, claiming she has recently passed away, and no longer exists.
CAST AND CREW
Joe Liles as Ryan
Em Hammett as Chloe
directed by Stephen Woosley
SUE ELLEN FINDS A HOBBY by Hannah Woods
Sue Ellen Finds a Hobby is a dark comedy about a teenage girl who has an inappropriate recreational outlet, murder. She goes proceeds with her diabolical ways until her best friend and accomplice, Linda, starts to question their motives. Another girl wants to get in on the action by finding the killer lurking in her neighborhood. Will Sue Ellen be able to execute one final victim, or will Linda's conscience get in way?
CAST AND CREW
Colleen Dunne as Sue Ellen
Kyle Jepson as Linda
Chad Hewitt as Carl
Frankie Diederich as Josephine
directed by Amanda Bauer
LATE FLIGHT HOME by Amelia Koontz
When two apparent strangers run into each other in an airport terminal, both heading to the same destination, they are forced to confront the past that they thought was far behind them. Do they want their paths to converge again?
CAST AND CREW
Blane Furey as Nora
RJ Shuman as Michael
directed by Stephen Woosley
CLOTHESLINES by William Lekan
“Clotheslines” chronicles the relationship of Carter and Sarah using five different sweatshirts from five different moments in their lives, as they go from childhood friends to middle school lovers to high school friends again. When the circumstances between them get more complicated, they will have to determine where they stand, where they are heading, and what they really feel about each other.
CAST AND CREW
Chad Hewitt as Carter
Lexy Weixel as Sarah
directed by Michelle Batt
FRESH FOLD DETERGENT by Tova Seltzer
Filming for a laundry detergent commercial is complicated when the lead actress reveals herself to be a conspiracy theorist and makes repeated attempts to hijack the script to serve her agenda of truth, gradually converting her coworkers and causing increasing stress to the project's director.
CAST AND CREW
Julie Azelvandre as Patricia
Stephen Woosley as Director
Katharine Pilcher as Angelique
Chris Wharton as Cameraman
RJ Shuman as Man 1/Brad
Sean Reid as Man 2
directed by Mary-Aileen St. Cyr
Theatre is dead. Advances in technology have made live performance nothing more than a quaint afterthought, an archaic artistic endeavor that has outlived its usefulness. As an art form, as a means to express the concerns and obsessions of today’s youth, it has been surpassed, supplanted, and buried six feet under. Young people today have no need for Theatre, don’t care about Theatre, and are, at best, only vaguely aware even of the existence of Theatre.
Stick a fork in it. It’s done.
At least that’s what I heard when I graduated from High School in 1986. My Professors in College had heard it, too, in the 60s and 70s. Their mentors were mourners at the funeral back in the 40s. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the death knell for Theatre as an art form was being sounded mere seconds after Sophocles took his last breath. It’s an old song and dance routine, a persistent meme, an obituary written centuries ago that insists on being republished to this day. Take a second to google some variation on “Is Theatre Dead?” and you’ll see what I mean.
And I completely understand the urge behind such pronouncements. There’s an alluring comfort in that cynical worldview. Like a tattered baby blanket, it’s easy to wrap yourself in that mindset, stick your thumb in your mouth, and cry about how much better things used to be. The Sirens that call to us all as we grow older aren’t really beautiful maidens tempting us to wreck our ships on distant shores; they’re old curmudgeons who have seen the world progress in what seems a blink of the eye, and want us to join them on the porch, yelling at those darn kids who keep stepping on our lawns. Those kids born into a technological culture that still seems vaguely new and mysterious to us who grew up with corded landlines and rabbit ears. Why, they’d rather text than talk to the person standing right next to them, right? What possible use could they have for live performance, which depends on active, present participation by all involved?
When MadLab started the Young Writers Short Play Festival three years ago, I have to admit that all of this crossed my mind. Perhaps even set up shop in my mind. Okay, dragged an old lawn chair from the basement, plopped it down forcefully, and refused to move from my mind. I wasn’t exactly optimistic about the response we would receive from these strange teenage creatures we were reaching out to, to say the least. After all, Theatre is dead, right? At least dead to the younger generation.
I’ve never been happier to have been proven wrong in my life.
Right from the beginning, we received scripts that were bold, daring, and perfect for the stage. These were scripts that demanded to be performed live, that depended on that one thing that makes Theatre unique from every other art form: Immediacy. What makes Theatre special, at least to me, is that it does the one thing that nothing else can. It brings the performer and the audience together, in a space of suspended disbelief and interaction. Unlike a novel, there are no descriptions of surroundings or unspoken thoughts. Unlike a movie, there are no quick cuts and camera angles to direct your eye to what is important. What you see before you on the stage is happening now, in real time, and what you see is what you get. Talented Directors, Actors, and Scenic Designers (set, costumes, light, sound) can take an audience to a different world, all while being there, living and breathing, right in front of them. It’s powerful stuff, Theatre, and it all begins and ends with the script. Seems nobody told these kids not to bother trying to write for the stage, it being kaput and all, because for three years we’ve all been blown away.
“Oh, but plays written by teenagers”, I hear the more curmudgeonly of you say, “what could those possibly be about? First dates and adolescent angst?”
To all of you thinking such thoughts, I have two things to say. First: Wow, condescend much in your old age, grandpa? And Second: These plays are about Life, Death, Love, Society, Truth. What all great plays are about.
No spoilers, but here’s what we’ve got for audiences this year:
Fridays beginning July 11: Bingo Purgatory by KT Bugenstein and Gina Clepper is a wildly funny piece about theology, forgiveness and what it may take for our souls to truly be at rest. 8 Minutes by Koryn Naylor tackles human connections in the face of time’s rapid pace. Kinsey Cantrell’s Trinkets examines how our families can divide us while at the same time uniting us. Breaking the Wall by Emily Cipriani uses theatrical convention expertly to explore how memory and loss are inextricably linked, and Alex Lacey gives one of the funniest Government 101 lessons I’ve ever read with Anarchy!
Saturdays beginning July 12: Instructions for an Existential Crisis by Gyasi Hall is a blueprint escape plan for those who feel trapped in the meaningless daily rut. Sue Ellen Finds a Hobby by Hannah Woods takes a darkly humorous look at privilege and murder. Amelia Koontz’ Late Flight Home brings an estranged father and daughter together far from home, with no easy answers. Clotheslines by William Lekan takes us on a journey of connection that spans years, as close as your own backyard, and Tova Seltzer skewers the world of Advertising, Paranoia, and Conspiracy Theories with the joyfully ridiculous Fresh Fold Laundry.
Pretty impressive, I’d say. In fact, I’d go so far to say that I’d be proud to include any of these scripts in MadLab’s regular season, that these scripts deserve to be given full productions, that we should throw ourselves into producing them just like we do any other scripts this year. Oh wait. That’s exactly what we’re doing. The Young Writers Short Play Festival isn’t just a nice thing we’re doing “for the kids”. No, it’s an essential reason MadLab exists, it’s an integral part of who are and what we do: Find New Plays by New Voices, and give them the due they deserve.
So, Theatre is dead, huh? Well, for a corpse it’s looking pretty good to me. Sometimes all it takes to change a perspective is to let the kids play on your lawn.
-Jim Azelvandre
MadLab Producing Director