Student-written plays to debut at Pitt New Play Festival

After a year of writing and rewriting their scripts, five Pitt student playwrights will see… After a year of writing and rewriting their scripts, five Pitt student playwrights will see their work come to life this week.

The first New Play Festival, featuring five plays performed over a two-week period, opens Wednesday in the Cathedral of Learning’s Studio Theater, located in the building’s basement.

Theatre arts professor Kathleen George has been working with undergraduate students since Spring 2011 to edit and revise their works. Pitt undergraduates wrote the scripts, and graduate students will direct four of the five plays. One play will be directed by junior Ben Kaye.

The contemporary, student-written plays, performed through Sunday, Feb. 5, focus on a variety of themes, including a student preparing for her graduation speech and a man’s last day on earth.

“I tell people who are older, ‘You really want to know what students are and what they think? Come and see students and what they write,’” George said.

It will cost Pitt students $8 to see their peers’ plays, and the non-student ticket will sell for $12.

George said “playwriting is the hardest form of all” because plays need a story that is cohesive, performable and moves along from beginning to end.

For George, the most difficult part of the year-long process was selecting which plays would be performed. She said she selected the short plays from her classes, Playwriting I, II and III and New Play Practicum.

But George didn’t have to face the decision process on her own. She said that in each of her classes, students critiqued their peers’ plays.

“You have a pretty good sense from the classes because of how people are responding,” she said. “I wasn’t totally alone in choosing because I had all that feedback.”

George asked several experienced graduate students to direct the plays.

“When you take a new script, you tend to need people with experience because it’s fragile,” she said.

Dave Peterson, a Pitt theatre arts graduate student, directed “Bend Down My Strange Face” about a woman who is desperately trying to repair her broken home. Junior Moira Quigley wrote the play.

The directors had an open casting for all Pitt students in November, during which students read a generic monologue. Directors called back those who they believed fit the roles best. Each play has about five actors.

“I needed somebody I knew in the lead role that I thought had a lot of dynamic energy. I needed a really mature actress for that role,” Peterson said.

Sarah Turocy, a junior theatre arts major, met his guidelines. Peterson ultimately chose Turocy to play the lead role, Mary, in his play.

Play practice kicked off at the beginning of this semester, with the casts meeting six days a week to go over their scripts for two hours.

When it comes to costumes, funding is low and creativity must take center stage.

“Most of the costumes are things that we found in our own wardrobe … which was fun,” Turocy said.

George said Pitt gave the New Play Festival $100 to divide among the plays.

“It’s basically budgetless,” she said about the low funding of lab shows, which are student-directed shows.

While money might have been tight, available supplies were abundant.

Pitt’s theatre arts department has a “costume shop” in the basement of the Cathedral, where student plays can take costumes and scenery as needed for their own University-sponsored plays.

“A lot of the costs were defrayed because we have so much access to the University,” Peterson said.

Regardless of the plays’ lack of finances, the students remain determined and enthusiastic to see the other playwrights’ work come to fruition.

“It’s cool to support your peers’ written work,” Turocy said.

New Play Festival:

Where: Cathedral of Learning Studio Theater

When: Wednesday – Saturday, 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m.

Price: $8 for students, $12 for non-students

Week 1

Date: Wednesday, Jan. 25 – Sunday, Jan. 29

Performances:

And This is How I Want It , And This is How It Will Be

Bend Down My Strange Face

Random Acts of Violence

Week 2

Date: Wednesday, Feb. 1 – Sunday, Feb. 5

Performances:

One Act

Psycho and Soma