Plays and Playwrights 2007

One of my longstanding objections to the 24 hour day is the fact that – even over the course of an entire lifetime – one will never be able to read every book, listen to every song, or watch every play that has ever come into being. In the case of the latter, however, theater lovers worldwide could not have a better friend than Martin Denton, founder of New York Theatre Experience, Inc. and publisher of an annual anthology of scripts spotlighting the talents of new and emerging playwrights in the indie theater scene.

United by the common denominator of New York City premieres between September 2005 and September 2006, the 11 plays assembled for release in Plays and Playwrights 2007 are imaginative, compelling, thought-provoking, and – in some cases – disturbing works that expose the fragile and tenuous nature of human communications in a century where technology and the media join forces to make us insular, self-absorbed and oftentimes paranoid creatures. Topical themes such as the Third World child-slave trade, the war in the Middle East, and homosexuality unfold in tableaus that force us to confront our prejudices, our inhibitions, and our frustrations at trying to strike a balance between coveting our privacy and yet seeking enough connectivity with others to hold up a mirror of who we really are.

Though all of the plays in this read have merit and reflect the edgy and insightful observation skills of their authors, a handful of them particularly resonated and will be at the top of my list should they ever make their way to the West Coast.

Kiss and Cry by director/playwright Tom Rowan is a bittersweet, multi-layered love story whose two primary players are Fiona, an up and coming young actress, and Stacy, a champion figure skater who fears that his secret lifestyle could cost him the chance to bring home an Olympic gold medal. With their respective lovers both pushing them to come out of the closet, they decide instead to endear themselves to their respective fans –as well as generate plenty of tabloid fodder - by pretending to be a hot romantic couple, a dangerous charade that leads to tragic consequences.

Why are some people consistently drawn to partners whose destructive personalities threaten their own sense of self-worth? In Ashlin Halfnight’s Diving Normal, Fulton’s burgeoning romance with Dana seems on the surface to be perfectly compatible with the friendship he has with his quirky and lonely neighbor, Gordon. Each of them, however, is grappling with self-esteem problems that make for a combustible equation when souls are bared and seemingly harmless flirtations give way to irreparable infidelities.

Lil desperately wants a baby of her own, an obsession that troubles her husband, Harry. Roachie wants his wife Keesha to stop giving him the third degree about his whereabouts. Donavan, the two couple’s crooked landlord, wants an illegal favor. In Chad Beckim’s ‘Nami, the premise of tsunami orphans being trafficked for pornography and prostitution speaks to the dark reality of how little we really know about the people who live next door or across the hall from us. Beckim does a phenomenal job in his vocal variety throughout this script. While I ordinarily eschew works which resort to cumbersome phonetic dialogue that significantly slows the pace of the read, all of his characters here are well drawn, entirely plausible and bleed their emotions onto every page.

Also noteworthy in this anthology is Brendon Bates’ Corps Values in which a father’s sense of duty to country is challenged when the Marine son he is so proud of for kicking ass in Iraq suddenly announces that he feels the war is unjust and is, therefore, turning AWOL. Interestingly, the scene in which the severed head of a 12-point buck is presented to Wade is eerily reminiscent of a brief moment in The Queen in which Helen Mirren as Elizabeth discovers that the magnificent stag she had previously shooed away from harm has been killed by a neighboring hunter.

Plays and Playwrights 2007 is a trade paperback of 492 pages which also includes a directory appendix of more than 600 new American plays produced in New York during 2005-2006 as well as biographical data on each of the writers and a foreword by Obie Award winner John Clancy. It is available online at www.amazon.com, www.bn.com, www.stageplays.com and Denton’s own website located at www.nyte.org.

Can’t get enough of Big Apple theater? Then you’ll want to subscribe to Denton’s newsletter which offers comprehensive reviews of new plays, classics, and revivals of popular musicals, virtual coupons for discounted tickets, a nexus for news of interest to the nonprofit theater community, and interviews with playwrights, actors, directors and producers. With a readership that enthusiastically numbers over 300,000 people every month, www.nytheatre.com not only lists more NYC shows than any other venue (there were 1,936 in the 2005-2006 season) but also reviews more productions per year (910 in 2006) than anyone can possibly imagine. In a city with a reputation for never sleeping, Denton and his tireless ensemble of reviewers make sneak-peeks accessible to the rest of us 24/7 as well as invite New York residents and tourists to make informed choices on how they want to spend an evening or matinee being wonderfully entertained.

The website also includes a fun New York theatre fact file for trivia buffs. For instance, did you know there’s an entire protocol on how to properly behave oneself at live performances? If you have ever been to a revival of your favorite musical and the person next to you started humming along – or worse, warbling the lyrics under his or her breath – they obviously have never availed themselves of Denton’s sensible advice. We really wouldn’t mind at all if you printed out a copy and handed it to them…

New York Theatre Experience, Inc. is funded by the New York State Council of the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, foundations, theater-related businesses, and private individuals. To learn more, visit www.nyte.org or drop Denton a note at info@nyte.org. Incidentally, on June 19th, New York Theatre Experience, Inc. celebrated its 10th anniversary. Here’s to many more!