PlayFest Guide

PLAYFEST!

the harriett lake festival of new plays KEYNOTE ADDRESS SPECIAL GUEST JEFFREY HATCHER

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5 AT 7:00 P.M. MARGESON THEATER This year, Jeffrey Hatcher, author of The Turn of the Screw, visits PlayFest!

Join us for his Keynote Address, “What the Audience Knows,” which focuses on the information, prejudices and expectations audiences bring to the theater and to new plays.

This event will be followed by a reading of his new work, Strongman’s Ghost.

PANEL DISCUSSIONS READINGS SPECIAL EVENTS

NOVEMBER 3 - 6, 2011

SPECIAL EVENTS WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2 AT 6:00 P.M. DARDEN COURTYARD Play selection for Play-in-a-Day.

PLAY-IN-A-DAY

A FUN-RAISER!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3 AT 7:00 P.M. ($10) MARGESON THEATER 20 actors, 7 writers, 7 directors and a team of crew members donate their time and talents to write, direct, rehearse, run the technical aspects and perform 6 original 10-minute plays within a 24-hour time frame. 90 mins.

PLAYFEST OPENING PARTY

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3 AT 9:00 P.M. HARRIETT’S BAR Cash bar with happy hour prices ($2 beer, $3 wine) and free appetizers.

FRINGE 101

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5 AT 5:00 P.M. ($20) PATRON’S ROOM How to Fringe with former Orlando Fringe Artistic Director, Beth Marshall.

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

(SEE COVER)

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5 AT 7:00 P.M. MARGESON THEATER

PLAYWRIGHT’S PANEL

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6 AT 2:00 P.M. MANDELL THEATER What’s a Playwright Gotta Do to Make a Living?

CLOSING PARTY

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6 AT 9:00 P.M. DARDEN COURTYARD

All readings located in the Mandell Theater. Schedule subject to change.

THE ODYSSEY

By Charlie Bethel FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4 AT 6:00 P.M. Shipwrecks, cyclopses, sirens and sex goddesses; cannibalism, death, loyalty and revenge. Solo artist Charlie Bethel unpacks it all for you in this retelling of Homer’s epic tale of a crafty hero trying to get home and the circumstances that stretch him to his limit. 75 mins.

SAMSARA

By Lauren Yee SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5 AT 11:00 A.M. When American couple Katie and Craig vow to make a last-ditch effort to have a baby of their own, their quest leads them to India, where a thriving commercial surrogacy industry offers them a final chance at parenthood.

A hilarious, unsettling look at reproduction in the 21st Century. 90 mins.

READINGS

PLAY-IN-A-DAY LOTTERY

SMOKE

By Gloria Bond Clunie SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5 AT 2:00 P.M. Country storeowner Ora Rakestraw wants no parts of the mysterious Wallace Johnson when he descends upon Manson, North Carolina to organize tobacco workers. The government declares cigarettes deadly.

Things get hot when love and small town politics clash! 100 mins.

STRONGMAN’S GHOST

By Jeffrey Hatcher SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5 AT 8:00 P.M. The General is a dictator of a small foreign country. He moonlights as a novelist. Everyone loves his books.

They have to. He’s the dictator. But he doesn’t have time to do the actual writing anymore. For that he has ghostwriters. His soldiers have just brought him a new one. His assignment: finish the General’s final book before the country is invaded by a nation very much like the U.S. 90 mins.

ZOMBIE TOWN

By Tim Bauer SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6 AT 11:00 A.M. When a horde of zombies overruns the small West Texas town of Harwood, the townsfolk assume the worst has already happened. But then a San Francisco Theater collective arrives, determined to tell the town’s story. The resulting play, assembled from interviews and told in the townsfolk’s exact words, is the true recounting of that terrible invasion. 70 mins.

FULL PRODUCTION

THE INVENTION OF THE LIVING ROOM

By Andrew R. Heinze SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6 AT 4:00 P.M. It’s 1946. An apartment on the Lower East Side of New York City. Bessie Levin, an emotionally fragile yet dynamic woman, is haunted by the past but about to be hurled into the future. Bessie wants to keep her home unchanged and her racially mixed, religiously divided family together.

Her son, Billy, is preparing to launch Levinstown, the first big postwar suburb, which he calls “the future of America.” But will the Levins survive Levinstown? And will Bessie survive the future? 100 mins.

FEVERISH

By Steve Yockey SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6 AT 7:00 P.M. Feverish is a retelling of Phaedra and Hippolytus through a modern lens.

The play fuses myth and modern ideas into a bold, vivid world of heightened realism, status games and unrequited lust. And sheds a whole new light on the “complex” love between a mother and a son. 90 mins.

GOD OF CARNAGE

By Yasmina Reza OCTOBER 12 - NOVEMBER 13, 2011 ($15-38) This 75-minute thrill ride takes you into the most dangerous place on earth: parenthood. A civilized discussion over a playground fight becomes a fingerpointing, fur-flying, hilarious brawl between two couples in this savagely caustic comedy, which nabbed the 2009 Tony Award for Best Play.

Content Advisory: God of Carnage contains strong adult language and mature themes. Recommended for adult audiences and older teenagers.

CALENDAR WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2 Play-in-a-Day Lottery

6:00 p.m.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3 Play-in-a-Day

7:00 p.m.

God of Carnage

7:00 p.m.

PlayFest Opening Party

9:00 p.m.

407-447-1700 VISIT ORLANDOSHAKES.ORG CALL

812 E. ROLLINS ST, ORLANDO, FL 32803

INFO

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4 The Odyssey

6:00 p.m.

God of Carnage

8:00 p.m.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5 11:00 a.m.

Smoke

2:00 p.m.

Fringe 101: How to Fringe

5:00 p.m.

Keynote Address: Jeffrey Hatcher

7:00 p.m.

Strongman’s Ghost

8:00 p.m.

God of Carnage

8:00 p.m.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6 Zombie Town

11:00 a.m.

Playwright’s Panel

2:00 p.m.

God of Carnage

2:00 p.m.

The Invention of the Living Room

4:00 p.m.

Feverish

7:00 p.m.

Closing Party

9:00 p.m.

Food and beverages available for purchase, provided by Virgin Olive Market and OST Guild. Saturday and sunday, starting at noon.

DAVID KELLEY IN BLUE SKY BOYS (2007)

PATRONS ROY AND PATRICIA AMBINDER GORDON AND SUSAN ARKIN SIEGMUND AND MARILYN GOLDMAN DON AND JOYCE HENCKLER STEVE GOLDMAN AND MELANIE LOVE JOHN AND RITA LOWNDES KEN AND TRISHA MARGESON DANIEL AND ELIZABETH MCINTOSH SIMON AND ELLEN SNYDER TESS WISE

Harriett Lake

PASSES ONLY $28!

A no-frills approach to PlayFest, the Festival Pass enables you to see all seven PlayFest readings. A fantastic bargain!

FRANK SANTOS & DAN DANTIN INGRID & COLEMAN CORDELL

SPONSORS

Samsara