Playfest provides a platform for student playwrights

The process behind this year’s Playfest started last fall with the course Theatre 327: Intermediate Playwriting, when Department of Theatre & Drama Prof. OyamO selected six student playwrights whose work seemed ready to be pushed a little further. Consequently, these writers enrolled in Theatre 429: Playwriting Towards Production, a course designed to help them understand their work as an object to be produced, culminating in productions during the week-long Playfest.

“In a sense, (the course) is kind of like a whisper of a professional developmental situation,” OyamO said. “The object is to have (students) develop the play as far as they can.”

“The thing isn’t to make people write in a particular, rigid form,” OyamO explained. “This is art, there is no such thing as (a right way) in my opinion. But the idea is to somehow or another get them to recognize what they are doing and why they are doing it. And to remind them to write from their heart and intuition as opposed to some particular notion of how a play is supposed to be.

“I mean, Edward Albee does not write like Shakespeare,” he added.

After students enrolled in the course discussed their work in class, each play was assigned a student director to draw up theoretical scenic designs and, of course, cast the plays. In Theatre 429 students with all different areas of theatrical expertise are given the opportunity to work together on something original and virtually independent from the authority of a professor.

“Playfest is representing the collaboration process,” said Emilie Samuelson, a School of Music, Theatre & Dance junior and one of the Playfest writers. “And that’s what theater is about — collaboration. To take what we’ve learned and to try it out on our own, to apply it to something, is really important.”

Audiences attending Playfest will have a chance to participate in the collaboration process too. The director of each play will lead a talk-back session with the audience, during which audience members can ask the playwright questions or offer general comments. The playwright will then ask the audience questions, aiming to gain feedback on the production and gauge the overall response.

“It’s hard to imagine how something is going to be received,” Samuelson said. “You can justify it in your head all you want, but whether or not the audience is going to get it, you never know.”

OyamO believes the talk-back session with the audience is crucial to the professional developmental aspect of Playfest.

“When we get that audience feedback, it becomes a very educational situation where you are learning by doing,” he said. “Some kids get very excited and some may be a little scared, but you have to get over that.

“There is no such thing as failure if you learned something,” he added.

Playfest gives students who may not necessarily be writing concentrators a one-of-a-kind opportunity to have their voices heard and to participate in keeping the contemporary theater fresh.

“Going out into the real world, the chance of getting a staged reading for an inexperienced playwright is slim to none,” Samuelson said.

“With the way the theater is right now, it seems like there are so many revivals,” said Matt Bouse, School of Music, Theatre & Dance junior and Playfest writer. “So it encourages students to write and then rewrite. New work is cool and important, and it helps to keep the theater alive. And (Playfest) is good for us as playwrights, to give us some encouragement and … to see what people appreciate about (our plays).”

Student-driven productions at the University in the past, including those at Playfest, have reached past the scope of the ‘U’ and opened a lot of doors for the students involved.

In 2008, former School of Music, Theatre & Dance student Seth Moore’s “Jonesin’ ” was first heard at Playfest. It caught the attention of Malcolm Tulip, clinical assistant professor of theatre & drama who produced the show as a mainstage University production in winter 2009. This summer, Moore will be at the O’Neill’s National Playwrights Conference with “The Man with America Skin,” a piece that premiered in 2009 at Playfest. “A Very Potter Musical,” a completely student-driven production with Basement Arts that premiered last winter, has a fan following all over the country and has become a YouTube phenomenon.

“You may be looking at some talent that’s going to be up on a board someday, and you can say you saw them first,” OyamO said.

The ideas students are exploring in their work featured in this year’s Playfest rest on all sides of the spectrum — ranging from an absurdist black comedy that starts with the unexpected arrival of a pizza man and ends with mayhem and murder, to an abstract, poetic and idealistic piece about failing to escape from a destructive life cycle.

“I can never be certain what these kids are going to write,” OyamO said. “A lot of the time people say ‘Write what you know,’ but it’s all experimental, so you can pretty much go wherever you want — there are no restrictions. Except porn, none of that; I’d say try cable for that.”

Although the opportunity has passed to see “Living Dead” by Bouse (Monday), “Pictures of You” by Samuelson (Tuesday) and “The Tyler Family Portrait” by School of Music, Theatre & Dance freshman Allison Brown (Wednesday), there are still three more plays. “Boundary Trauma” by School of Music, Theatre & Dance junior Allison Stock premieres tonight, “Caged” by LSA junior Alison Rieth premieres Friday, and “Elbow Room” by School of Music, Theatre & Dance senior Tedra Millan will close Playfest on Saturday.

“It’s interesting to see what young people are writing,” OyamO said. “What do they think about the world and what’s happening? To me, that’s worth seeing.”