WHAT: 25 Hour Theater Festival
WHEN: Performances on Sunday, Nov. 3, 6 p.m. (masks required) and 8 p.m. (masks optional)
WHERE: The LAVA Center, 324 Main St., Greenfield
https://www.facebook.com/events/1259405781760496
Admission will be at the door only and a suggested donation.
GREENFIELD, MA — In 25 hours, five to seven playwrights and a hatful of actors will agonize, write and rehearse an evening of brand new plays into life.
Produced by local playwright Christine Benvenuto and made possible by a grant from the Greenfield Cultural Council, the evening will showcase the work of western MA writers Henry Balzarini, Nina Gross, Silvia Kaplan, Steve Poulin and Jan Maher, and eastern MA writer Brian Rust, possibly joined by one to two others.
On Saturday, Nov. 2, Christine will give the writers a prompt to write to and they will each pick from a hat the names of a few local actors to write for. Then it’s time to get to work! Writing into the night and perhaps throughout it, each will create a play of approximately 10 minutes. The next morning and afternoon, they will rehearse with their actors and bring the plays as close to performance-polished as humanly possible.
The performances will be open to the public on Sunday, Nov. 3, 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. Admission will be at the door only and a suggested donation. The show at 6 p.m. will require masking; the show at 8 p.m. will not.
Taking part in play festivals involving prompts and time limits admittedly longer than 25 hours in New York and elsewhere, and enjoying local iterations of 24 hour festivals as an audience member, Christine has long wanted to produce a festival in Greenfield. Originally assuming the project would entail 24 hours, this one became 25 when the weekend was chosen and it turned out to be Daylight Savings. The 25 Hour Play Festival was born!
It’s an experience challenging, creative and fun for the writers, the actors and of course for our audience participants.
About the playwrights:
Henry Balzarini is a former teacher of English and a writer of works in storage. He has created and helped others create in-the-moment short improv plays in various and sundry venues over the years in Boston, Vermont, Western Massachusetts and LAVA.
Nina Gross is a musician and a writer of poetry, prose, dialogue and song. Her writing has been included in anthologies and presentations of the Straw Dog Writer’s Guild, Moonstone Arts Center, Cutthroat Journal, Suzuki World Magazine, the Montague Reporter and The LAVA Center. She is a Yale graduate with degrees in anthropology and Afro-American Studies. Her play, Inheritance, is ready for production. She practices aikido and loves to dance.
Silvia Kaplan’s interests focus on poetry, play writing, story writing, ceramic sculpture, paper mache sculpture and cooking. Her interest in writing began earlier in life, inspired by her father, a well known poet from Argentina. Silvia also teaches Spanish, and wandered in many parts of the world, until establishing herself in this country. She loves all animals, insects, and nature. Especially, she loves cats.
Jan Maher writes novels, short stories, plays, poems, and to-do lists. She is a co-coordinator of The LAVA Center in Greenfield, MA.
Steve Poulin has taught English and now finds himself married to an actor. Through the running of countless lines he has discovered the magic of the stage, writing a series of one-act plays during the pandemic that were produced at Greenfield Community College.
Brian Rust is an actor, clown and writer who was most recently on stage this summer in the Post-Meridian Radio Players’ live audio production of “The Thin Man.” He would like to thank Christine for this opportunity, and his thermos of Mountain Dew mixed with Red Bull for making this script possible.
The LAVA Center is a community arts space in Greenfield, MA whose mission is to create opportunities and build inclusive community in and through the arts and humanities. We are focused on making The LAVA Center a space where all artists, including marginalized communities and individuals, can have their voices heard. The LAVA Center is located at 324 Main St., in downtown Greenfield, MA. https://thelavacenter.org