If there’s ever a time to take advantage of theater in the downtown Phoenix area, the next couple weeks are it. Starting Friday, Phoenix Theatre will be holding its Hormel Festival of New Plays and Musicals, which ends on Sunday, March 29.
The festival will feature five staged readings, a composer/lyricist cabaret composed of three composer/lyricist groups, a 24-hour playwriting project, two sit-down readings of plays by ASU Master of Fine Arts playwrights and an improv show. All events are $10, except the sit-down readings and the improv show, which are free.
One major purpose of the festival is to give playwrights the opportunity to see how the audience responds to work so that they know what might need adjustment, said Phoenix Theatre Associate Artistic Director Robert Kolby Harper. All of these plays and musicals are still fairly new — hence the name of the festival — and provide a unique opportunity for audience members and playwrights alike.
“People who would enjoy this are people who want to see theater in its raw, beginning stages and who want to be part of the process in some way,” Harper said. “Playwrights get so much from just watching an audience respond to their words, and that alone in so many cases is the most helpful, the most telling.”
This is the festival’s 17th year. It started as a series of staged readings that spread out over four weeks in July with the inspiration of local playwright Richard Warren and local actor and director Mark DeMichele, Harper said. At the time, Phoenix Theatre only hosted the festival rather than programming it.
A few years after Harper stepped in, he decided to collapse the festival by making the time frame shorter and adding more programming. Those additions include more staged readings and the 24-hour project, where playwrights, directors and actors write and produce a short play in the course of a full day. Last year, Harper moved the festival into Phoenix Theatre’s seasonal programming in the spring.
“We moved it into a better part of the year where the weather isn’t so stifling, because the goal is to eventually get to a national status,” Harper said. “People come here for our festival, and we wanted it to be in a time of year that was appealing and make it more part of our season.”
A few standout elements of this year’s festival make it particularly promising. First, local playwrights are well-represented. While Harper makes sure there is always at least one slot for local work, this year is featuring more than a few local playwrights.
Women are also well-represented. All of the staged readings this year are by women playwrights, which Harper praised for a few reasons, including the fact that the playwriting world can be male-dominated and difficult for women to break into. Harper did blind reads when he selected work for the festival, meaning he didn’t know who the author was when he read the entry.
“It’s not like I said, ‘I’m going to pick all female playwrights,’” Harper said. “No. They picked me.”
Finally, all the shows promise to be spectacular, Harper said.
“This year is really exciting. Some years it’s like, ‘OK, yeah, there’s some good stuff,’ but I have a great group of actors working with us this year, I have a great group of dramaturges,” Harper said. “It’s grown, it’s growing. That part, for me, is the most exciting.”
One show of note is “The Boob Show,” a musical by Sally Jo Bannow, who lives in Phoenix and has faced breast cancer twice. The piece highlights ideas of self-image and the power and importance society gives “the chest region,” Harper said.
From dark comedy to drama, all the shows at the festival present a unique perspective, Harper said. With comparatively low-cost tickets for any given event and several events open to the public for free, the Hormel Festival of New Plays and Musicals provides a great opportunity for frequent theatergoers as well as the average downtowner.
While tickets are available at the door, Harper suggests attendees buy tickets online. The composer/lyricist cabaret is already sold out.
Find the full schedule of events at the Phoenix Theatre’s website.
Contact the columnist at molly.bilker@asu.edu
