It went like this.
The call went out for scripts, eight to be performed last Friday and Saturday nights at the Wade James.
They expected maybe twenty scripts from Edmonds and environs. They got 87 from Edmonds and environs, the USA and Canada.
No one expected the Wade James to sell out both nights. It did.
The idea was for the audiences to pick a “People’s Choice,” meaning the one script they liked best,” and for a panel of three judges to pick a “Judges’ Choice,” meaning the three scripts they liked best, second best and third best.
Here, I for one, being one of the enlightened three and wise in the ways of theatergoers, had an expectation; namely, that there would be some agreement between the “People’s Choice” and our “Judges’ Choice.” There wasn’t..
That, dear friends, went like this.
Audiences on Friday and Saturday nights voted “A Womb with a View” by Rich Orloff their “People’s Choice.”
Here is an imaginative comedy by a New York City playwright with over six hundred plays produced on six continents to his credit. The comedy spins around a fetus afraid to be born during birth contractions. It’s original, consistently funny stuff packed into less than fifteen minutes. That’s going some.
Joanna Goff from Edmond Community College’s Drama Department, Juliana Pereira from Lynnwood High’s Drama Department and I voted our “Judges’ Choice” to be one, two and three: Mary Steelsmith’s “Seldom is Heard;” Chris Shaw Swanson’s “People Like Us;” and Dennis Meadows’ “Blind Dates for the Down-sized.”
Steelsmith is prize-winning playwright from Los Angeles;” and “Seldom,” a sensitive, thoughtful, timely drama about a stouthearted wife’s devotion to her shell-shocked, vet husband returned from Afghanistan. The Neighborhood Restoration Society” is pushing the wife to keep her messed up husband and his wheelchair out of sight. It’s hurting property values, don’t you know? The wife stands her ground and our war hero’s. This is poignant stuff.
Swanson hails out of Westerville Ohio with honorable mentions in more than fifteen national competitions and productions across America to her credit. Her “People” is a dramatic, penetrating of two misfits generating the beginning of a meaningful relationship. It moves from distrust, through waning suspicion to giving trust a try. Honest and a heart-warming quality make it work.
And Meadows is from the Big Apple with productions in Brooklyn and Manhattan among his accomplishments. His “Blind Dates” addresses the insecurities involved when matchmakers pair lonely hearts. The give-and-take is sophisticated, personal, honest.
Kudos to Alternative Stages President, Carissa Meisner Smit for dedicating herself, mind, body and soul; to Driftwood for backing Alternative Stages; to the eighty-seven playwrights who put themselves on the line, winners all; to the theatergoers who supported the undertaking and to the countless others involved.
Expectations went by the boards. Opinions clashed. Passions ran high, low and in all directions.Yet, all was well because it ended well. My understanding is, “Festival of Shorts” will happen again next year and after that, the gods willing, become an annual theater event. Let’s hope this year’s was much ado about something.
Reactions? Comments? E-mail Dale Burrows at entopinion@heraldnet.com or grayghost7@comcast.net.
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