Future Ten festival features pint-sized plays

The Future Ten festival has a surprise for its audience each season, but one year, the actors were surprised when a woman went into labor outside the venue. Future Ten

“Too Big to Fail”

Nov. 4-6 and 11-13; 8 p.m.

819 Penn Ave.

$10 online; $12 at the door

www.futuretenant.org

The Future Ten festival has a surprise for its audience each season, but one year, the actors were surprised when a woman went into labor outside the venue.

This year, with the hope that its own surprises won’t be overshadowed again, Future Tenant will host its annual Future Ten play festival titled “Too Big to Fail.”

Brad Stephenson, the festival’s founder and co-producer, founded Future Ten when he worked for Future Tenant.

“I’ve always liked 10-minute plays, and I like the short format,” he said. “You never know what’s coming next.”

Fred Betzner, co-producer of Future Ten, also finds the short plays inviting.

“It’s a challenge,” Betzner said. “It’s difficult to find a complete character arc in 10 minutes.”

The eight selected playwrights were originally among 175 applicants, and this year Future Tenant had the most scripts ever produced for the festival. A panel of seven judges went through the original plays and “wittled them down to eight,” Stephenson said. The panel was made up of Andrew Paul, producing artistic director for Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre; Don DiGiulio, founding artistic director of No Name Players; Todd Betker and Adam Kukic of Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company and Laura Zorch and Orvokki Halme, directors of Future Tenant.

“Future Ten is a curated festival, not a competition,” Stephenson said. “They chose what is best for the audience.”

Both local and out-of-state playwrights submitted their work to the festival.

The festival is more of a communal entity that helps the playwrights, directors and actors to meet others within their craft, Stephenson said.

Though the festival will give the playwrights some publicity, it is not the intention of the event.

“We’re not going to make or break a playwright,” Stephenson said, laughing.

Each playwright has done plays in the past, and some have had their work in a Future Ten festival before. Playwrights such as F. J. Hartland, Arthur M. Jolly, Joseph Lyons, Carol Mullen and Gayle Pazerski have previously been part of the show.

Other playwrights include Trace Crawford, Tammy Ryan and Chris White, who all have had their plays performed across the country.

The plays in the festival are all different subgenres of comedy.

“There are very different comedies,” Betzner said. “Slapstick, satirical and some that are just silly.”

Joseph Lyons, a playwright in his sixth season with Future Ten, wrote a play titled “There Will Be Jetpacks.” The play, like the title implies, includes jetpacks among a bevy of other entertaining components, and embodies what Betzner describes as a “just silly” brand of humor.

“His plays are always funny and memorable,” Stephenson said.

The title of the whole event is “Too Big to Fail,” but the festival’s content does not reflect the title, Stephenson said. Betzner explained the introduction will incorporate the title’s theme, and that the two are “writing a little bit” for the festival.

Future Ten is in its seventh season. Each festival holds a surprise for the audience, and in past years, there were games such as “Slap the Hooker,” Stephenson said.

Much like an adult form of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, participants had to slap the hookers, which were both male and female.

“The game was not gender-specific,” he joked.

This year, another “giant surprise” awaits the audience. The two were hesitant in disclosing any information, but did say it was unrelated to the actual festival.

One important change in the festival is the formatting of the performances. In the past, the Future Ten festival showed 10 different plays, which were split in half between the two weekends. This arrangement had audience members feeling left out from the other weekend’s plays.

This year, there are eight 10-minute plays performed each night on both weekends, with Betzner’s and Stephenson’s short introduction. There will not be any change between the two weekends so the audience will have the full experience at both shows.

The new setup will hopefully spark attention, Stephenson said, because now, the audience does not need to invest in two separate weekends.

Both Betzner and Stephenson have high hopes for the upcoming shows.

“Our main goal is to make something that is entertaining,” Betzner said.