Local Drama: The new play’s the thing

The past week at The Players Theatre has been dedicated to something wholly unique to the Sarasota theatrical community: a festival that consists of 100% new plays written by local playwrights. 

Founded in 2001, the Players New Play Festival, which runs from July 20 through July 25, has become a summer tradition at Sarasota’s 80-plus-year-old community theater.

Open calls with no admission fee draw an average of 40 plays from playwrights who live from Tampa to Naples.

An anonymous panel of four or five judges rates the plays based on a range of criteria. Those five or six plays that have the highest ranking out of a 100-point scale are awarded finalist positions for public readings on the stage of the Players Theatre.

“Almost every reading we have here, there is an aha, goose bumps moments” says Jeffery Kin, artistic director of The Players Theatre and organizer of the festival since 2004. “Readings force playwrights to think in a different realm. They’re all ready to listen. And they’re all ready to learn.”

The Players’ festival is unique in that it’s limited to local adult playwrights who are presenting their latest full-length plays to the public for the first time.

Each night, one of the five finalist plays is read. Kin and his festival coordinator, Sandra Musicante, schedule the week so that every playwright can see his or her play read, and also organize acting auditions and assign directors to each play.

The winning play from the weeklong festival will receive a full production in August 2016 at The Players Theatre. The playwright and director will collaborate to improve plays based on audience feedback and response.

The readings themselves are bare bones, so they don’t distract from the characters and writing. That means no grand entrances and exits, no blocking and no giant sets or embellished costumes.

Whether they technically win or lose, entrants say they win because of the massive learning experience the festival provides.

“It’s a phenomenal experience,” says Connie Schindewolf, whose play, “Let Me Be Frank,” is a finalist at this year’s festival.
“It’s kind of overwhelming all of a sudden to hear your words on stage and seeing the characters come to life when they’ve been in your mind for sometimes years.”

Schindewolf’s entry focuses on the struggle of a family dealing with its patriarch’s descent into Alzheimer’s disease.

Schindewolf says she started thinking about the play nearly four years ago, when she reflected on the death of her grandmother, who exhibited Alzheimer’s-like symptoms in the late 1970s and early 1980s that were dismissed as senility.

Schindewolf spent more than 25 years in the St. Louis area as a high school theater teacher. She retired and moved to Sarasota in 1999 and started focusing on writing plays.

Arthur Keyser’s play, “Before Steepletop,” focuses on the career of Pultizer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. It is a finalist in the festival.
 

Keyser has been in love with writing and the theater his whole life. Both his parents were born deaf, and they made reading and writing a key part of his upbringing.

Keyser put his writing and reading skills to work as a corporate lawyer for 50 years in Philadelphia, but he always felt something was lacking. Getting involved with The Players Theatre after retiring in 2004 to Sarasota with his wife prompted him to become a playwright.

“I had been going to the theater my whole life as a kid,” says Keyser. “When I was 80 years old I volunteered here and got involved with a senior theater troupe.”

He lacked acting skills, but members in his troupe noticed his habit of adding notes to the scripts and changing story and character details. They encouraged him to keep writing.

Now, Keyser has written 40 short plays and six full-length plays. He and Schindewolf, who has written nine shorts and recently completed her third full-length play, say The Players Theatre’s New Play Festival is invaluable to them and their playwriting peers because it gets their work shown and, more importantly, gives them inspiration and tips to improve their writing.

“As someone who’s trying to be a playwright,” says Keyser, “I’ve got to get used to the idea that art is subjective, and we’re fortunate to have people honestly tell us what they think. I’ve never learned anything from someone only telling me my play was good.”

 

Finalists

“Let Me Be Frank” by Connie Schindewolf

Director: Pam Wiley
Narrator: Kristi Hibschman
Mary: Lynne Doyle
Frank: Tom Aposporos
Cece: Jordan Boyer
Amanda: Natalie Robison
Jim: Richard Russell

“Ludlow” by George Loukides

Director: Ken Basque
Narrator: Anthony Spall
John: Ian Weir
Hannah: Eliza Engle
Mary: Alyssa Goudy
Clara: Jordan Obbema
Louis: Andrew Mileham
Bruno: Dave Downer
Felix: William Allred
Rockerfeller: Craig Engle

“The Nearly Final Almost Posthumous Play Of The Not Quite Dead Sutton McAllister” by Kris Bauske

Director: Tim Fitzgerald
Reader: Rod Rawlings
Duffy Donnelly: Ric Goodwin
Edith Entwhistle: Lynne Doyle
Albert Entwhistle: Tom Aposporos
Tori Russell: Alana Opie
Sutton McAllister: Ray Crucet

“Why Can’t I Be You?” by Llywelyn Jones

Director: Jeff Dillon
Jason James: Ryan O’Dell
Phil Fresquez: William Alfred
Melanie Ritz: Lucy Manuel
Howard Martin: Cliff Roles
Reader: Ariel Baker
 

“Before Steepletop” by Arthur Keyser

Director: Dan Higgs
Narrator/Felice: Melliss Swenson
Vincent: Amanda Heisey
Young Sheldon: Mike Manley
Older Sheldon: Charlie Tyler
Walter: Tom Aposporos