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The unique annual festival presents the work of eight new playwrights at the Public Theater
Annie Parisse and Jenny Ikeda in Tell Out My Soul
Don’t get burned by theater this summer; come in, out of the heat for the sixth annual Summer Play Festival (SPF), making it safe for theater newbies on both sides of the stage to get their culture on. The unique festival, founded by Tony-winning Broadway producer Arielle Tepper Madover in 2004, presents the work of eight new playwrights annually, giving them financial, promotional and mentoring support before letting them loose on the Public Theater. Seeking to expose audiences to works that might not otherwise be produced, this year’s select few were chosen from thousands of original musical and play submissions, by writers both with and without representation, to present full productions of their plays, for only $10 a ticket. Perhaps partially explaining why SPF has sold out its four-week runs every season, for the past five years.
This year, The Living Room for Artists, Madover’s non-profit organization responsible for the fest, has aimed to do the same with a mixed line-up of dramas, comedies and even a testosterone-fueled musical, that provides something for everyone, unless you’re young and impressionable—the plays in the festival all carry a warning declaring each possibly unsuitable for those 15 and under. Not surprising considering plays entitled, We Declare You a Terrorist and Whore, but what’s in a name?!
Parental advisories aside, the diverse festival includes Adam Immerwahr directing Kevin Christopher Snipes’ flashback thriller The Chimes, about a man’s haunted voyage back to his New England boarding school, triggering memories of the four friends he made through a love of Shakespeare before the onset of World War II. It sounds similar to Dead Poets Society, but remains thankfully free of Robin Williams. Also, Reborning is Zayd Dohrn’s disturbing dark comedy, directed by Kip Fagan, about a latex-wielding baby doll sculptor who meets a woman trying to recreate the past.
Madover is responsible for numerous works on and Off-Broadway, including the long-running De La Guarda, which changed how most of us interpret theater. Striving to continue the tradition, the productions not only provide an outlet for the playwrights while supporting directors, actors, stage managers and interns, but also allow audiences access to theater, without the pretense.
The Summer Play Festival (runs July 7 – August 2; full schedule at www.spfnyc.com) brings you the best of the best from an international pool of talented emerging artists. Expose yourself to the rays of these rising stars now, before they burn bigger and brighter on Broadway, making them far too hot to handle without another application of SPF.